Solemnis
by El Conservatore
Summary: A bored schoolgirl sits in class, idly perusing the internet (which is quite against the rules) as she listens with half an ear to lecture on things that, quite frankly, she does not care about. This is not the life that she wants, but the life she wants, she can't have. It's quite a dilemma. If only there were a way to change that... -spinoff of "To The Stars", by Hieronym-
1. Random Chance, Or Not

_Well you know, Earth was never attacked, ever, during the Contact War. So we had all the amenities, right? Anything you wanted, you could get as long as you still had allocs for that month. And if you didn__'__t have allocs left, well, you could always wait another month and you__'__d be set. So it was always very easy to go out and have a bit of fun if you wanted to get away from the day to day life of it all._

_-Captain Madison Thatcher, C Company, 1st Regiment, 5th Magical Division, Third Army Group of the Nile_

* * *

_I remember once, as a kid, looking out from one of the greenspace towers and thinking: __"__Wow, this is really cool. It__'__d be great if I could fly around in here.__" __I never figured I__'__d be able to do it for real just a few years later. _

_-First Lieutenant Abigail Fischer, A Company, 2nd Regiment, 8th Magical Division, Second Army Group of the Yangtze_

* * *

Emma Sinclair watched tensely as Spain's national football team slid the ball neatly forward and backwards and from side to side, their players moving with precision and speed as their opponents, the national team of Germany, countered their moves masterfully with tight, efficient blocking maneuvers. A carryover from the twentieth century, not even the Unification Wars and implants could stamp out football. Now, it was a game mostly dependent on team cohesion and closely run tactics, but a twist of the foot here or a sudden feint there could suddenly swing the match a completely new direction. Speed, accuracy, and a keen mind were, as they always had, necessary to win.

"It's Ramirez with the ball," read the captioning, Emma choosing to keep the live feed on silent so that she could at least pretend to be paying attention to lecture. "Ramirez passes to Marquez to Romero who fires a high loop- and it's Mendez with the header to goal!"

"One, zero, to Spain," Emma whispered to herself with a firmly-clamped-down grin, flicking the viewport to the side with a mental nudge as she skimmed over what had been written on the board.

...she had no idea what was going on.

"Ayumi," she wrote, stylus seemingly setting down notes on what was on the board. Instead, it went to an instant messaging app. "What's going on?"

"Ugh, Emma, can't you stop with your football during Mandatory Session at least?" Ayumi asked back, the roll of her eyes clearly audible through the text on the desk's surface, projected over Emma's vision from her internal implants.

She rapidly scribbled back: "Wasn't watching a game."

"Sure you weren't, just like you definitely haven't downloaded a mod that makes a facsimile of a movie pass," Ayumi sighed. "I'll forward my notes to you later, but the gist of what's going on is..."

Emma calmly and carefully summarized Ayumi's summary, pausing occasionally to watch the instructor as he continued describing the effects a magical girl could have on a supply chain.

"Thanks for the help, Ayumi," Emma said later, after Mandatory Session ended and the students were splitting up again to head to their respective courses for their particular interests.

Ayumi sighed as they walked towards the Common Area. "Just... keep it to a minimum, will you? I mean, I get it, you'd rather be doing football, but seeing as you refuse to join any of the regional teams-"

"-because they all suck harder than-"

"-you're going to have to at least put up with this until your parents give up," finished Ayumi blithely ignoring Emma's protests.

"Yeah, like that'll ever happen," said Emma sourly, folding her arms and glaring at the floor beneath them. "What is it with parents anyway?"

"Eh, can't live with them, can't live without them," shrugged Ayumi. "Maybe it'd help if you grew your hair out a bit?"

"But I like it this way!" protested Emma, putting her hands protectively on her lighter brown hair, cut to the nape of her neck. It had originally been cut to make it easier to play football, and had never been changed since her family had moved from London to Mitakihara City.

"It makes you less stereotypically feminine though," said Ayumi with a shrug. "Your parents want you to be more normal, so maybe a small concession to get some peace?"

"What next then, taking up the tea ceremony?" asked Emma flatly with a raised eyebrow. "Ayumi, I'm not going waste my time appeasing my parents until I get emancipated. That's just dumb."

Ayumi rolled her eyes. "Have it your way then. Where's your sister?"

Emma looked around. "Hmmm... ah, there she is. Hey, Anna!"

Anna Sinclair looked up from the floor with a start, having been gazing thoughtfully at it as she slowly walked in the general direction of the Common Area. The Sinclairs were twins, and the only really distinguishing features between the two were their hair and their clothing. Emma wore t-shirts and capris with her short hair, while Anna preferred skirts and long sleeved shirts, occasionally with a jacket or vest thrown over the top.

Alerted, now, Anna weaved her way through the crowd of milling students and joined the two girls.

"What were you thinking about?" asked Ayumi.

"Well, we went over high risk factors in a supply chain in Mandatory today," began Anna, scratching her chin thoughtfully, "and I was thinking about something I learned a week ago about migrating sub-networks."

"Oh yeah?"

"Mmhm. See, it turns out that if you have a closed sub-network that performs a service function but doesn't have any material outputs-"

Emma tuned out of the conversation to check the game again. Germany had pulled back, evening the score and putting pressure on Spain's defensive center. It was a classic maneuver: breaking the enemy's center line neatly split their defenses and allowed you to drive directly to the heart of their formation. From there, the only thing preventing your strikers from scoring was the goal keeper, and a well organized set of passes could defeat that. As she watched, Germany's offense started strong, causing the Spanish to retreat to maintain their defensive footing. Quickly, the wing backs retreated towards the goal, preventing the German left and right wing attackers from slipping past and getting a clean shot. Suddenly, the German offensive was stalling at against a reactionary and highly efficient Spanish defense, each defender moving into position to block the-

"What do you think, Emma?" asked Ayumi.

Emma blinked and hurriedly re-played the conversation. "Um... I'm pretty sure it'd work?" she hedged, drawing a hasty conclusion. "If you maintain enough AIs to handle the sub-routine, you can devote more personnel to ensuring that the risk is managed, right?"

"AIs, huh?" mused Anna, leaning back in her seat and considering it. "I guess I forgot about them. But wouldn't the time taken to program them be a big resource sink? And it's not like Governance would just let you make one willy nilly."

"Well, you could ad hoc a sub-routine from various AIs that have similar functions," Ayumi pointed out. "Technically speaking, a starship AI can perform the calculations required to manufacture a part in three dimensions."

"Yeah, but that'd be a huge waste of a starship AI, wouldn't it?" asked Anna rhetorically, "After all, the one is designed to calculate FTL paths, while here you only need it to make sure a part is made in the shortest time possible."

"Why not-"

Emma tuned out again, leaving the two to their ever expanding argument. Anna and Ayumi did this often, constantly pushing some silly idea towards the absolute extreme of its logical boundary. Both were on track to become engineers. Anna was still building the foundations for an Industrial Systems and Logistics certification, and Ayumi was working towards getting a Complex System Dynamics certification. Total nerds, the two of them, but it did explain why they were friends.

Presumably, Emma was going to go into the same field as her sister, but she found the material to be extremely dull. Emma scowled at the floor between the group's feet. They'd been happy in London. She had football, Anna had her studies, her parents had their work. As lives went these days, it had been pretty average, but she had been content. Now though...

Emma's chronometer dinged and reminded her that she needed to get to her next class soon. Maybe Interstellar Supply Chains would be more interesting?

(-)

Emma flopped bonelessly onto the couch in her family's living room. The one good thing about moving to Mitakihara City was that her family had somehow managed to land a not-horribly-cramped apartment on the 580th floor. Sure, her and Anna's bedrooms were a little small now, and their parents' bedroom was only a little bigger, but the wide, open living-room-cum-kitchen made up for it in spades, the combined space allowing for the maximum of stretching out and relaxing after a long day.

Painted a slightly excited pale blue, the walls and ceiling of the living room were matched by a cream-colored carpet. The furniture had been modulated to recall 20th Century Swedish Minimalism. The current setting had the furniture blocks made out of springy synthwood and soft memory foam. The combined effect was not unlike a particularly a firm hug from one side, with the couch being a particularly excellent place, in Emma's opinion, to take a nice nap.

The kitchen was decorated similarly, switching the carpet out for tile but maintaining the color scheme. Several barstools faced the white colored kitchen island, within which was installed the food synthesizer. The surrounding counter space was dominated by storage for cutlery and plates, but also included an autosink, and a rack of alcoholic beverages. Idly, Emma noted that they were running low on that whiskey her father liked. That was a bad sign.

"Do you want anything to drink?" asked Anna, who was leaning against the island with a mug of synthesized tea in her hand.

"Eh, don't bother," groaned Emma, curling up with a small yawn and tucking her head under her arms. "I'm too tired to care."

"You haven't even done anything, how could you possibly be tired?" asked Anna with only mild incredulity. Emma was no longer the ball of energy she had been as a child. They had been asked to move to Mitakihara City almost two years ago now. The transition hadn't been fun, as most twelve year olds didn't respond well to a completely new setting for the rest of their adolescent lives. The problem had been exacerbated by the lack of a vigorous football culture in Japan. While Anna had full access to all the materials she could need, Emma had quietly stewed in discontent and aggressive boredom as the days ticked by. It hadn't helped that their parents had been reassigned to a new project, were gone most of the day, and spent the remaining time trying their best to get Emma to "drop the football nonsense and pick up something intellectual, for goodness sake".

"I guess the research isn't going that well," Anna commented.

"You noticed it too?"

"Of course. I'm the smarter twin, after all."

"Pfft, you wish," Emma returned, mouth curling into a grin. "I still kick your ass in chess."

Anna puffed her cheeks out unhappily but didn't argue the point. It was true that Emma's experience on the football pitch helped her dramatically in games like chess, despite the fact that the solutions manual was well read by now. Resolutely, neither of Sinclair had read it and muddled along, discovering the strategies as they went. It was a fun intellectual challenge, at least.

"Don't forget that one time I flanked you utterly with my knights," Anna countered. "I may not win all that often, but you have to admit that I destroyed you that time."

"Sure, sure," said Emma with a negligent waive of her hand. "You're also the one who understands and is excited by logistics, so I guess we even out."

"Bad day of classes?" asked Anna.

"Oh you have no idea," groaned Emma. "Sometimes I wish I hadn't gone down the Interstellar Specialization. That way, I could just copy off you."

"Except that you find manufacturing floors nauseatingly dull," said Anna with a small grin. "And you'd be caught in a heartbeat."

"I can lie better than that!" argued Emma with as much indignation as she could muster. "Dad still doesn't know about the thing with the football!"

"Oh bloody hell, don't make me remember that," groaned Anna, covering her face with her hands. "Dammit Emma..."

Emma stuck her tongue out at her sister. "Don't make it worse than it is, you drama queen. It didn't even light the carpet on fire!"

"You still tried to put a nanofiber camera inside of a ball without bothering to download the info on how it'd work! Why did that seem like a good idea to you?"

"Oh shut up. No harm done so it's water under the bridge, right?" dismissed Emma, curling into a napping ball. "Urgh. When did sensei want that assignment done for Mandatory? Oh good, it's not until tomorrow."

"Naptime again?" asked Anna exasperatedly. "Emma, come on, let's go out and do something tonight!"

"Like what?" asked Emma with a raised eyebrow. "We have almost completely opposite interests!"

"Let's go to that cafe again," suggested Anna. "We both like it, and it's not that far away from the magical girl patrols. If we're lucky, we might get to see a demon fight!"

Emma considered. It was true that demon fights were pretty exciting to watch, despite the fact that you couldn't really see anything. It was really the whole "lookit the magical girls" aspect that was interesting, along with the occasional explosion that splashed against the edges of the miasma. It was a bit risky, but nobody had yelled at them yet.

"...I guess," she said, after a moment. "We haven't gone searching for one of those in a while, have we? I kinda miss it."

"Come on then," said Anna with a grin, draining her cup and putting it in the autosink, before hopping over and pulling her sister to her feet. "Let's eat early so we can get a good chance of seeing the action."

"Fine, fine," said Emma, brushing off Anna's hand and straightening her clothing. "I was just getting comfy too..."

(-)

The cafe in question was called "The Standard Affair". The owner was apparently a fan of irony, since restaurants were no longer standard affairs in an age of synthesized, quite delicious, food. Still, synthfood could get boring after awhile, and human artistry still leant some little spark that made a well crafted meal unique.

"Hey Emma," asked Anna between bites of her sandwich, "what d'you think about Isi-san?"

"Isn't he the guy who sits in the third row of our System Processes class?" asked Emma, raising an eyebrow across the synthwood table. "What about him?"

Anna gestured vaguely, hands directing a point in the general direction of the whitewashed walls and dark pillars of the cafe. "I was talking to him the other day. Just wanted to ask your opinion."

"What were you talking about?"

"You know. Stuff."

Emma narrowed her eyes, engaging her implants to make sure she was reading her sister's expression correctly under the dimmed lamps of the cafe. "You don't... have a crush on him?"

"No!" protested Anna, recoiling with only the most modest of blushes. "I just... think he's cute, that's all."

"Cute."

"In a confused sort of way."

Emma rolled her eyes. "Well, if you two decide to hop into bed together-"

Anna gave her sister a deadpan look and bopped her on the head with an unused spoon. "Stop it, it's not like that."

"Oh really?" asked Emma, teasing grin flitting across her face. "So his slight nerdiness and mildly lopsided smile don't make you wanna-"

"Sounds like you've noticed something about Iti too," countered Anna, arching an eyebrow. "But how absurd, my sister the jock noticing something like that? No..."

"Hey, I notice boys just fine, thank you!"

"And you've had... how many boyfriends?"

"Just as many as you. Which is none."

"That's not relevant, the point is-"

As the sisters bickered good-naturedly over their sandwiches, the door of the cafe opened with a small chime, heralding a five-man-band of chattering adolescent females, all dressed in various combinations of t-shirts and jeans. Over Anna's shoulder, Emma blinked as she realized that the conversation was traveling along distinctly atypical paths.

"Really?" one of the girls, who had pulled blonde hair into a series of curls, was saying in disbelief. "Didn't she just get promoted though?"

"Yeah, apparently she got a little uppity with Colonel Silva," said another, brown hair cut straight with pink highlights. "Bam, immediately reassigned."

"But, she's been the company CO for a dozen years already!" said another girl, her hair pulled back into a simple ponytail. "Colonel Silva can't just reassign her to Echo!"

Anna had picked up on it too. "Magical girls," she mouthed to Emma in shock. Emma nodded back, catching sight of the fingernail markings and rings that set the magically inclined from the commonplace.

"Should we?" asked Anna wordlessly, tilting her head in the direction of the counter where the owner was taking down orders.

Emma shrugged. "Couldn't hurt," she gestured back. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"We be annoying and holyshitthey'recomingthisway." Emma blinked and turned in the direction of Anna's suddenly pale gaze.

"Hi there!" chirped one of the girls, her hair a shade of blue that shimmered as she approached with a skip and a wave. "So, we were wondering if we could sit with you? The cafe's kinda empty and we've started rehashing old topics, so..."

"Er, s-sure," stuttered Anna. "Um, here, let me-"

"No no, we've go this," said the magical girl, waving away Anna's attempt to help put together some tables. "Heyhey, Kanae-chan! Help me out will you?"

"Do it yerself, Mimori!" a girl with long, reddish brown hair tied up in a bun called back, before returning to her conversation with the Blonde Curls.

"Eh, what can you do?" said Mimori with a shrug as she pulled two tables over from the middle of the room. "So, Anna and Emma Sinclair, as you probably know from your nomenclators-" Anna and Emma had already looked her up, it was true "-I'm Nakagawa Mimori, at your service." Mimori The girl bowed with a flourish, spreading her arms wide in a facsimile of a ringmaster welcoming someone to the show, before popping back up with a skip and a hop. "So you're twins then? Which one of you is older?"

"Me," Emma said, raising a hand redundantly. "By, uh.. two minutes, I think?"

"That's what it says on our birth certificates," said Anna, pulling them up on her implants to confirm. "But it's alright, seeing as I'm the smarter twin."

"Nyeh," replied Emma, crossing her arms with a roll of her eyes. "You just plan more than I do, it's nothing that special."

"What's this about plans?" asked Blonde Curls, whose name was evidently Sarah Johansen, coming over with a glass of something fizzy and vaguely alcoholic. "Mimori, you're not up to something again are you?"

"Hey, it wasn't me, it was Anna-san!" said Mimori with a pout.

"Wait, hold on-"

"Ah, well in that case I'm confident it won't get anyone scarred for life," said Sarah, extending a hand towards Anna. "Good evening. I hope Mimori hasn't been too... eccentric, tonight."

"Um, no, it's fine," said Anna with a blink, shaking Sarah's hand in bewilderment. "But I-"

"Oh, twins!" said Sarah, either ignoring or not hearing Anna's protests and turning to Emma. "You're not very common these days, are you?"

Emma nodded, a little embarrassed at the sudden attention. "Ah, well, I could say the same for you," she said, hiding behind her beverage by taking a drink. "There's not really that many magical girls around our part of town."

"Really? I'd have thought that the tourism alone would have made us more visible in Mitakihara, but I am just a tourist, after all."

"Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of magical girls around the starport or something," said Emma. "But, we're kinda closer to mid-town rather than the center of the city, so the only girls you'd meet are probably going to be locals, you know?"

"Although, there was a girl in our class who got.. contracted," said Anna, blinking strangely as she said it. "I- ah, dammit. Ow."

"What'd you do?" asked Emma concernedly as Anna suddenly winced and put a hand to her face.

"I got an eyelash in my eye, sorry," said Anna, taking a sip of water. Emma raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Nothing," Emma said with a shrug. "It was just really random."

"Eh, it happens," said Mei, the girl with pink highlights. With her were Heather and Kanae, and all of them were bearing trays of food. "Behold, I come bearing foodstuffs," Mei said, deadpan, before setting the plates down on the table.

"So, I guess you all need plans for the evening?" said Emma, speaking over Mimori's cheers and Kanae bopping her on the head and telling her to be more quiet.

"Well, there was Mimori's plan of getting drunk and then going off on a demon hunt, but we vetoed that," said Sarah pulling up a chair next to Emma and sitting down with her legs crossed. She wore a light yellow jacket over her green t-shirt. With a shrug and a sip of her drink, she continued: "But, you know, I'm sure we'll find something to do. And we found two new faces, so that helps."

Emma considered this as she bit into her sandwich again. "Why us?" she asked, after chewing and swallowing. "I mean, there's nothing special about me and my sister."

Sarah smiled around her drink as she took another sip. "You'd be surprised," she countered. Unnoticed to Emma, Anna flinched at this. "You can find the most interesting people just talking to someone at random. Besides, as we've said, twins aren't all that common these days, are they?"

"That's true, I guess," said Emma as Mimori struck up a conversation with Anna about flying motorbikes. "Well, me and Anna were going to go sightseeing after dinner. Do you all want to come with?"

"Oh? I thought you'd have seen all the views already," said Sarah as she considered her pickle. She looked up at Emma, raising a questioning eyebrow. "Unless there's something particularly interesting about this view?"

"Well, it happens to be right alongside a patrol route for the locals," said Emma, leaning in to speak quietly. "We came upon it be accident, and no-one else knows, so don't tell anyone."

"Sorry, but magical girls have excellent hearing," said Sarah with a sheepish smile, nodding at the rest of the group. "I'm afraid that everyone's already heard."

"That sounds like fun, actually!" said Mimori, tossing a chip into the air and catching it in her mouth with a crunch. "Whaddya think, Mei?"

"Eh, can't be that exciting if civvies can find it and not get caught in the miasma," Mei replied. Evidently, she was in charge of vetting all plans. "Still, maybe a movie afterwards?"

"Yeah, the patrol is scheduled to go past at 1730, so there should be plenty of time for something like that," said Heather, who bore the ponytail, eyes unfocusing as she consulted the listings for the nearest theater. "Ooh, there's a new documentary out!"

"Heather, only you like documentaries," said Mei, rolling her eyes. She blinked, then: "I guess we're all in agreement. Anna-san, Emma-san, I hope you two don't mind?"

(-)

The group of seven traveled in a public transit airvan to the neighborhood of the Sinclairs' view point. Over the course of the trip, she and Anna had somehow gotten separated, with Anna being the focus of Mimori and Heather as they discussed topics of a highly intellectual nature. Emma had ended up talking to Sarah on a variety of topics, mostly stories from Sarah about her deployments.

Out of the corner of her eye, Emma watched her sister carefully. The thing with the eyelash had been random, but ever since the magical girls had decided to hang out with them for the evening, she had seemed to get more and more morose. It wasn't that obvious to an outsider, but the fact that Anna hadn't gone all glittery-eyed when the conversation had turned to military supply chains was rather telling.

"So, I take it you're all on leave," said Emma, putting her concerns to the side for now. She'd have to ask Anna about it when they got to the view point. "You'd be at the front otherwise, right?"

Sarah nodded. "Yes, this is the third combat tour for most of us," she confirmed. "Except for Mei, she's been around for a couple more years."

"So I guess you've all fought together for awhile then."

"Oh, no, you're a little confused," said Sarah with a smile. "You're nomenclator probably says we're all from the 7th Ganges Magical Division, right?"

"Yeah," answered Emma, nodding.

"You see, Divisions are broken into Companies, which are then broken into Platoons," Sarah explained. "I'm from B Company, Mimori and Kanae are both from C, Mei is in A Company, and Heather is in D. We're all very busy within our Companies, so talking to people outside your company is less common than you'd think."

"Oh," said Emma sheepishly. "I guess I should have looked that up."

Sarah smiled but dismissed that with an airy wave. "You didn't know you didn't know. The only thing you can do is try and see what happens, right?"

Emma nodded. "So how did you all meet, if you're not from the same unit?"

"Mei felt like visiting Earth and asked around until she got a decently sized group going," said Sarah. "From there, it was just deciding a destination, and what better place to visit than the hometown of the Mitakihara Four?"

Emma nodded. "I can see what you mean, but London's definitely better."

"You've been there before?"

"I was born there," said Emma, gazing up the tower they needed to climb to the top of. It was made efficiently and utilitarianally, faced with polyglas and shimmering in the evening light, broken only by the occasional wide balcony. Just like the ones Emma had grown up around as a child in London, gazing in wonderment at something so incredibly tall and asking her parents if she would ever get that big. "I...I miss it a lot."

Sarah nodded, a wistful smile on her face as they waited for the elevator to reach ground level. "I was born in New Taipei, you know. It was the single largest city on Hulei-5. We had the best fried chicken there, covered in a spicy, tangy sauce we made out of the region's peppers. The architecture wasn't like here, since we didn't need to conserve space as much, so we had all sorts of shapes and colors."

"Sounds cool," said Emma, smiling appreciatively. "Do you visit often?"

"Hulei-5... Hulei-5 was razed to the ground a few years back," said Sarah, face falling sadly. "I made my contract during the attack. The military was pulling out to reinforce Optatum, and Hulei-5 was deemed nonessential. I got pulled out by a Magical Division only a few minutes before an antimatter device incinerated New Taipei."

"That's terrible!" said Emma, horrified. "I'm- bloody hell, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to bring up bad memories."

"Don't worry about it," sighed Sarah, giving Emma a reassuring smile. "I've had three years to get over it, and my family is as supportive as they can be. As far as contracts go, I'm lucky. My wish meant something, and my family is behind me all the way."

"Do.. do most girls get bad wishes?"

"It's not like that," said Sarah, shaking her head. "It's just that not all incubators have a good understanding of human nature. I'd tell you more but, you know, secrets."

"Ah," said Emma. She and Sarah fell silent for the remainder of the wait and for the trip to the top floor, both wrapped up in their own thoughts. Sensing the mood, the others gave them their space and talked amongst themselves.

It seemed that becoming a magical girl couldn't be much worse than joining the military. At least, it seemed that way to Emma. There was fighting, there was death, and the statistics were probably terrible. But the statistics for a freshly trained Private in the Army were easy to find, and the attrition rate wasn't exactly good, anyway. Depending on how you were deployed, anything from 1 in 13 to 1 in 3 soldiers died, in a given offensive, on the front lines of the Contact War. The sheer weight of firepower a squid offensive could leverage was only ever barely held back by human forces, and they paid for that with lives.

Sure, technically speaking, one hundred years from now, she'd have lived a "full life", but what exactly would that entail? Analyzing supply chains? That thought made Emma want to vomit. Football? She was certainly out of shape by now, and she wasn't sure how much of her old skill she retained. There were some things implants couldn't do, and civilian level ones didn't let you increase your speed and strength effortlessly like military ones could. She would need to work back to her previous level, and by then she'd be behind...

Well, it was probably better than supply chains, at least, but playing minor leagues was not what she had envisioned. Given that her choices were football or logistics, this at least meant that she wouldn't be jumping off a building at age forty. There were other tracks she could still switch on to as well, and despite being a year or two behind her age group, it was entirely normal for anyone who was interested to enroll in the course. There was someone about two hundred years old in Anna's Interstellar Supply Chains class, after all.

Emma grunted in annoyance and turned back from the polyglas wall that surrounded the elevator. The view was spectacular, but she'd seen it a dozen times now and wanted to get her mind off of her low prospects for the future. It was depressing.

"What're you guys talking about?" asked Emma, stepping forward to lean on the wall next to Mimori.

"Ah, we were just discussing about the differences between Samsara and Earth," answered Heather. "Caledonia and Mitakihara City, specifically."

"Caledonia's the capital of Samsara, right?" asked Emma.

"That's right," said Heather as the elevator doors opened with a ding on the 800th floor. "As an example, most of the buildings aren't more than 300 stories tall."

"Really? I'd have thought a planet like Samsara..?"

"Eh, the population's only something like three-and-a-half billion," answered Heather, as they stepped onto the roof. The sun was about an hour from setting, its yellowing light casting the greenspace and benches on the roof into shades of orange. A hologram reminding users that their safety was paramount was quickly dismissed, the words long memorized and disregarded. "So you can imagine that if you're following standard Governance building philosophy, you can pack most of that into cities with three hundred story apartment complexes, right?"

Emma thought about it for a moment before nodding. "Yeah, because the packing density of a building's related to demand, and since demand isn't that high you can fit the same number into more buildings with less stories or vice versa."

"See, I told you that Logistics would be useful eventually," said Anna dryly, her sentence punctuated by a sigh. "And you said that you'd never get to apply it until you were fifty."

Emma almost stopped in alarm to ask what was wrong, but: "You're both studying Logistics?" asked Heather. "You don't seem the type, Emma."

"I'm really not," sighed Emma, watching her sister as she slowly walked towards the railing with the best view. "But let's not talk about it. It makes me depressed."

"Eh, fair enough."

The northeast corner of the building overlooked a street of Governance-affiliated offices. Most of them appeared to be getting ready to end the day, with a steadily increasing rate of people.

"Oh, hey, offices! Always a good place for a miasma," said Mimori cheerfully as she swung herself up to sit on the railing.

"Don't kill yourself, Mimori," said Kanae, leaning against the railing beside her.

"Finally, it speaks!" cheered Mimori. "Why d'you gotta be a silent spectre all the time, Kanae?"

"Because you never are."

"Haha! It's funny because it's true~!"

The magical girls swiftly became embroiled in a good natured round of teasing, shooting insults back and forth at lightning speed, giggling the whole way.

"Mimori's a weird one, isn't she?" Emma said to her sister, leaning next to her on the railing. She turned her head to watch the interaction between the minor celebrities in their midst, vaguely amused by the normality of the situation.

"Yes, and I hope she isn't offended by that," said Anna with a sigh and a nod. A forced smile appeared on her face. "Who figured we'd get to meet five magical girls at once, much less get to hang out with them?"

"It's a little surreal," agreed Emma, turning to lean her head on her hands and look out over the space between them and the office building. "You always hear about them, but I don't think anyone actually knows a magical girl personally."

"Well we are in one of the more boring fields," said Anna. "I imagine only girls in fields like, I dunno, Extrastellar Biology, get chosen."

Emma laughed. "Well, if you're obsessed enough-"

"Or crazy enough," added Anna with a smile.

"-to try and find life in the vacuum of space," finished Emma, "I imagine you'd have some sort of potential."

"Just not potential for sanity, heh," added Anna with a sigh. "Still, you're the one who wants to go off and fight a war, not me."

"What do you mean?"

"You're thinking about it, right? Joining the military?"

Emma turned to look at her sister and blinked in confusion. "In a hundred years or so, sure, but it's not like I can do that right now."

Anna returned the look with a steady gaze. She seemed resigned, as if she'd seen this coming from a mile away and had already tried to think of a way around it, but failed. "Everyone who knows you knows that you're not happy here. Mum and Dad know it, but they'd prefer you stay safe until then. It's why they want you to get into Logistics, you know."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Magical girls showing up out of nowhere, hanging out with the two of us and acting like they're no different from the other girls at school? Come on, Emma, you're smarter than this. You can see where this is going."

Emma wrinkled her brow and leaned back, looking at her sister with incredulity. "You're not suggesting..."

"I am."

"But why?"

"Does anyone ever know?" asked Anna with a shrug, looking back out at the office building, where the flow of people had gathered to its maximum.

Emma looked away from the street towards the cluster of magical girls to their right. Mimori was now arguing with Heather about something, with the ponytailed girl returning fire from a textbook she was looking up. At first, Emma would have looked at it as just two friends with a long established rapport doing what they'd always done.

But now Mimori's eccentricities now felt forced and stilted, like a facade of a personality constructed as much to fool herself as to fool others. Kanae's silence felt born out of a brevity necessary in combat, to keep commands rapid and focused for maximum effectiveness. And Heather's looking up of information suddenly felt like the habitual actions of a drug addict, looking for comfort the only way she knew how.

But on the other hand, Mei's presence almost radiated focus and calm. From the placement of her feet to the way she folded her arms in amusement at Mimori's actions, Mei felt and acted like there was nothing she was worried about and nothing she didn't know how to handle. In the same token, Sarah was almost serene, possessing a sort of casual grace that none of the others had. Talking to her was like talking to a gentle waterfall: a small trickle falls, stones respond with bell-like tones, the world turns onward. You could disturb her, easily, but the trickle of water would never crash into a fountain to destroy the rock setting below. There was no trick for Mei and Sarah, no attempt to be something they weren't. Emma just couldn't see it.

"I'm not sure you're correct," said Emma, turning back to her sister. "I think you're thinking too much about it."

"But wouldn't it be a perfect opportunity?" asked Anna, gesturing at the magical girls. "A big show to convince you of the validity of your choice, followed by a celebration with some girls you're already friends with?"

"You're being way too suspicious about this," said Emma resolutely, shaking her head. This was what she'd gotten worried over? Her sister overthinking things? Yeesh. "Let's just enjoy the moment. You're right, I'd join the military earlier if I could, and if it's through a contract, then at least I'll get added benefits. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen, after all."

"Very wise, Emma," said a voice in both their heads, causing both Sinclairs to jump. "You too, Anna, although I hope I can persuade you to making a contract this evening."

A furry white creature jumped up onto the railing. A red ring on its back could be seen briefly, before it turned to face them, long tail and ears, the latter encircled by golden rings, trailing behind it as red eyes looked up at the two sisters.

Anna blinked at the Incubator, then turned to Emma. With a sigh and a shake of her head, she folded her arms.

"I suppose this is where I say: 'I told you so'."


	2. Sunset is Sunrise

"Now don't be rude, Anna" chided the Incubator, dipping its head slightly. "It's not polite to hold things like this over your sibling's head." Anna gave it a miffed look and folded her arms.

Emma stared in shock at what had manifested in front of her.

"You... you're real," she said, reaching out with one hand and gently poking the Incubator in the cheek.

"Yes, I'm very real," the Incubator replied, nuzzling the finger gently in response. "I'm sure I don't need to tell you why I'm here."

"No, I... I gathered."

"Well then, do either of you have a wish you want granted?" asked the Incubator, tilting its head inquiringly. "You of course know that I can grant most anything."

"I-I don't, I mean I never thought that-," stuttered Emma, mind whirling as she tried to comprehend just what was happening. Anna had been right? How could she have known? And for that matter, she had hardly seemed surprised.

"Anna, how long did you-?"

"Didn't I say? I've seen this coming from a long ways away," sighed Anna, rubbing at her eyes. "Ah, dammit, I promised myself I wouldn't cry when this happened…"

"Here," said Sarah, appearing at Anna's shoulder with a handkerchief, causing the girl to start. "Sorry, combat training. It's habitual by now."

"It's alright," said Anna, dabbing at her eyes. "Ugh… There's not much left for you to do now but think of something to wish for, Emma. Go ahead, let's see what your soul gem will look like."

"Hey now, what makes you think I'll contract, just like that?" asked Emma, somewhat offended at her sister's presumptuousness. "You're the only family I've had for the last two years, I'm not going to do something that'll make you cry! Besides, you can see Kyuubey too, why don't you make a contract?"

"Heh, that's a really good question, isn't it?" asked Anna rhetorically. "I guess I just don't think my wish is going to be as important as yours, that's all. Maybe if you make a wish that's not so important, I'll make one too. That'd be cool, don't you think? The Magical Twins?"

"I- sure. Maybe. I don't know," said Emma, still reeling. "What- what should I wish for?"

"That's not something we can really help you on," said Sarah, pulling Anna closer to her and withdrawing. "We'll give you some space to think, alright? Make sure your wish is a good one."

Emma watched as Sarah and Anna walked back to the others, who had taken a seat on a group of benches. Anna was wiping her eyes, muttering something about waiting being the worst part.

"It's not an easy decision," said Kyuubey, giving Emma a look that seemed to express centuries of understanding. "I've contracted many girls in my time on Earth, and very few were happy to make a spontaneous wish and jump into the contract."

"Why me?" asked Emma, still watching at her sister as she talked quietly with the magical girls. "It's pretty obvious that Anna would rather I stay here than go. I don't want to make her cry."

"That is a question that is difficult to answer," said Kyuubey, shifting on the railing restlessly. "The best I can say is that your potential is tied to your discontent with life. You find it all terribly dull, don't you?"

"That's true," said Emma, looking up at the late evening sky. Streaks of cloud, stained magenta, purple, orange, and yellow, sheeted the sky in rolling waves. Beyond was the upper atmosphere, then the vacuum of space. And from there, anywhere in the galaxy could eventually be reached with an FTL drive. There was so much potential for _something_, anything out _there_ had to be better than _here_.

"Your parents are also absent, and your friends and sister are all expecting you to leave when you are of age, anyway. What ties do you have?"

"Expecting is not the same as accepting," said Emma, frowning and looking back to Anna. "These two years haven't been all that kind. Back in London, we at least had our own ways of life. Now, though, our lives are the same, and without our parents there's nothing that keeps us from feeding into each other. You can't expect me to accept that Anna will be alright on her own."

"Ah, you misunderstand how the system works, these days," said Kyuubey with a shake of his head. "It's true that back when the Mahou Shoujo Youkai was not in existence, your concerns would be valid, and I would have left you to your lives. But now, magical girls take care of their own, and that extends to family members. Aside from the more public benefits, the MSY makes sure that they get the support they need to cope. Rest assured, Anna will not be abandoned when you leave."

"I.. alright." Emma took a deep breath, trusting Kyuubey to his word. She hadn't really done any research, and there was no time to do so now. But Sarah and Mei, girls like them… she trusted them, despite the little time she'd had to get to know them. The MSY, it was something like a huge magical girl union, wasn't it? And unions, from what she'd learned about history, usually didn't screw over their members. "Alright. I'll make a contract."

"Well then, Emma Sinclair," said Kyuubey, the sunlight striking him from the side and casting one eye into shadow. Both eyes glowed in the darkening light, fixing Emma in their gaze. "With what wish will your soul gem shine?"

Emma closed her eyes. She hadn't been sure what she wanted. She certainly didn't know what she wanted now. But maybe it wasn't about what she wanted, but what she could be? After all, making a contract and becoming a magical girl was not something you could take back. If you made a contract, then you had to follow through and do your best. Especially in war, where anything less than that would get you killed. Yes, that was something that made sense to her, something that she could hold close to her heart and carry forward for the rest of her life.

Emma opened her eyes, then said the most important words she would every say.

"I wish that I can make the best out of my life. I'm not going to waste this opportunity."

Kyuubey nodded, its ears stretching forward.

"Wish granted," he pronounced, a light gathering in the center of Emma's chest, growing in intensity and kicking up a sudden wind. "Your soul has successfully reduced entropy."

The next part happened very quickly, with a blinding pain that made Emma gasp. Along every nerve ending, every capillary, every muscle fiber, bright fire seemed to erupt, burning her from the inside out with the all consuming and irreducible force of a hurricane, ripping up and out from the depths of her body even as it fell into dust and ash and was swept aside...

And then suddenly, it was over, and Emma was whole and unhurt, standing exactly where she had been before, her soul gem glowing before her eyes.

"Take it," ordered Kyuubey, eyes closed in something almost like benediction. "It is your destiny."

With trembling fingers, Emma reached out and grasped the shining blue gem, wrapped in gold filigree and topped with a small, fluted knob. Her soul gem was warm to the touch, pulsating gently with her heart's beat.

"Hey, look, a new contractee!"

Emma blinked, looking up as the patrol they had come to watch passed by, magical girls of all colors and specializations turning in mid-flight to look. She smiled sheepishly and waved, greeting them telepathically as they ran past.

"Good luck!"

"May the Goddess save you from despair."

"Hey, see you around rookie!"

"Don't die! Ow!"

"Haruka! Don't say those things to newbies! Sorry, kid, Haruka's rude."

"Hehe, it's alright," replied Emma, waving at a girl dressed in red, too distant to really see her outfit in detail and not really caring enough to magnify. Beside her was a girl in blue, who was crossly rubbing her head. "Thanks everyone, for the well wishes!"

The patrol quickly moved on, disappearing into the urban jungle, the sun blotting out their path with its final glow. Emma watched them go, clutching her soul gem tightly as she did so.

She'd be joining them soon. Maybe not tonight, but chances were they'd want her to try a patrol before she left, to make sure she wasn't completely clueless at training.

Jeez, training. The war. Emma took a deep breath to calm herself as her mind whirled at the implications of what she'd just done.

"Hey, Emma, you alright?" asked Heather, stepping up behind her. "That was one hell of a wish, by the- whoa now, easy, easy…"

Emma's knees had abruptly decided to stop working. "Ah, sorry, sorry," she said sheepishly, getting her feet underneath her quickly. "I guess the weight of what just happened hit me all at once. Thanks for the save."

"Don't mention it," said Heather, letting her go. "Anyway, like I said, that was one hell of a wish. It's supposed to be a private thing, but, you know, magical ears."

"Yeah, yeah, that was really well done!" said Mimori, bounding over energetically. "Man, if only I coulda pulled that off when I contracted. You were super cool about it too, no stuttering or nothing!"

"Congratulations," said Kanae simply, nodding as she came over. "Well, hopefully."

"Don't be a downer, Kanae," said Mei, rolling her eyes. "It's true that some girls regret contracting, but you don't seem like one of them. Welcome to the fold, as it were, Emma. The way things work is that, if you want, you get a mentor, usually the girl who witnesses your wish. Technically speaking, that's all of us here, but Mimori's not really the mentoring type-,"

"Nope!" chirped Mimori. "I'd probably give you bad advice and get you killed, sorry Emma!"

"-Heather and Kanae are both in the Shock Battalions and aren't allowed for a few more deployments-,"

Heather and Kanae both shrugged. It was what it was, apparently.

"-and I've already got a girl I'm mentoring," finished Mei. "That leaves Sarah."

"Did someone call?" said the curly haired mage. Stepping forward, she curtsied with the edges of her jacket. "Emma Sinclair, if you'll have me, I would humbly request to be your mentor."

"Sure, but, aren't I supposed to ask you?" said Emma, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, technically speaking, yes," said Mei. "But screw ceremony. We're all happy with the arrangement, right? Right. Here, check it out."

A view window opened in Emma's field of vision, several lines of text upon it. Evidently, judging from the small tag along the side, it had been forwarded from Mei's implants.

_Emma Sinclair _(it said), _Magical Girl, Second Lieutenant. Classification: unknown, Immediate Commanding Officer: __Captain__ Mei Zhou, Primary Mentor (optional): First Lieutenant Sarah Johansen_.

"Oh. Cool," said Emma, blinking away the window. "I.. I can do that now?"

"You mean share things mentally?" said Mei. "Yeah, it's a new feature. Comes with getting inducted into the military. But hey, we can get you caught up in a bit. Don't you have someone to talk to right now?"

Emma blinked, then started guiltily as she saw Anna standing off to the side, staring off at the horizon where the sun had set. Kyuubey had changed positions and was perched on her shoulder. They appeared to be having a conversation.

"Right," said Emma, nodding to the assembled girls. "Thanks for the help. Give us a moment, will you?"

"Absolutely," said Mei, shepherding all but Sarah away towards the elevator. "We'll meet you a floor down, alright?"

"Yeah," answered Emma. She turned to Sarah. "I guess you're my mentor now. What should I say?"

Sarah sighed and pulled out more handkerchiefs from her pocket. "You know Anna. You know her motivations and her desires. You'll need to stay strong, and hold your conviction close to you. Remember that she supported this decision, and that she will continue supporting you. She loves you very much, Emma."

"Y-yeah," said Emma, choking up slightly. The implications, the possibility of her death, leaving Anna behind… "I know. T-thanks. I can take it from here."

"I believe in you, Emma" said Sarah, handing Emma the handkerchiefs. With an encouraging pat on the shoulder, Sarah left and called the elevator, joining the others a floor down.

Emma looked down at her hands, her soul gem having reformed into a ring while she wasn't paying attention. One fingernail had a blue vortex atop it, swirling inwards towards the center of the nail. With an effort, she stopped herself from tying the handkerchiefs into knots and made her way to Anna's side.

"I see," Anna was saying to Kyuubey as Emma approached. "I guess when you put it that way, it's not so bad."

"It's really quite efficient, if I say so myself," said Kyuubey. "If one- ah, Emma, thank you for your contribution. We were just discussing the nature of your contract."

"What about it?" asked Emma, standing next to Anna and looking at the Incubator.

"Your soul gem is not, in fact, tied to your soul," said Kyuubey.

"It's really your soul itself," finished Anna, smiling slightly at Emma's look of shock. "Don't worry, you're not a zombie."

"A very superficial description of your current state," said Kyuubey with a sniff of disapproval at the implication. It was probably the most emotion an Incubator had ever expressed in the last ten millennia, but staying on earth for at least five hundred years had given Kyuubey some eccentricities. "As if such a thing were even remotely useful."

"Ah, so, it's something more like a golem?" asked Emma, thinking back to the various bits of folklore she'd read while in London. "Animated earth or whatever?"

"An adequate approximation, given Earth culture," said Kyuubey. "It is, however, still inaccurate by several orders of magnitude."

"The point being, in the end, that your body is really just a shell now," said Anna, bringing the conversation back on track. "Your real self now resides in that ring on your finger."

Emma looked back at the ring she wore. Gold, with her soul set within a swooping cage that kept it safe from harm. "So what, I'm an AI now?"

Anna and Kyuubey managed to roll their eyes simultaneously. Rather, Anna rolled her eyes and Kyuubey did the closest thing an Incubator could approximate after five hundred years.

"Just, moving on," sighed Anna. "So. Your wish. Any regrets?"

"Not… not yet," hedged Emma. "Have you decided on whether or not you'll contract?"

"Tell me your wish first," said Anna, waving a false-scolding finger. "That was our agreement, remember?"

"I- okay." Emma took a deep breath, then recited: "I wish that I will not waste the opportunity I've been given. Or, er, something along those lines."

Anna nodded thoughtfully. "That's a really important wish, Emma. Making sure that your life will be meaningful."

"Among the wishes I have heard, Emma's counts amongst the more well thought out ones," added Kyuubey.

"I'm really proud of you, Emma," continued Anna, reaching over and pulling Emma into a hug. "You made a good wish."

"Yeah, great, so now what about you?" asked Emma impatiently, pushing her sister off and looking her in the eye. "Are you going to contract or not?"

"No," said Anna firmly. "I've decided not to. My wish isn't really that important."

"Why not?" asked Emma. "What have you got to lose, really?"

"Well, a number of things," said Anna, petting Kyuubey idly on the head. "There's my career goals, for one, and Ayumi's a pretty good friend I'd like to keep. There's also Mum and Dad. Someone's got to be around to cheer them up. And don't forget Iti, our cute nerd."

"He's your cute nerd, not mine," said Emma with a roll of her eyes. "And Mum and Dad are parents _in absentia_, so I doubt they'd care at this point."

"I'm… not so sure about that," said Anna, looking away. "But even if its true, it'd be too heartless for both their daughters to go to war. They still love us, you know."

Emma's lips thinned but she didn't contest the point. "They've got some way of showing it."

"Doesn't mean it's not there," said Anna. A pause, then: "Can I see your gem?"

"Yeah, here," said Emma, pulling the ring off her finger. "I think I- there we go." The ring reshaped itself in a flicker of light, turning back into the egg-shaped crystal it had been earlier. She held it out to Anna, who took it reverently.

"Heh, you know, if you listen to those sappy romantic songs, this makes us lovers," said Anna, giggling as she turned her sister's soul gem over in her hands. "You've literally given your soul to me."

Emma scowled in distaste. "Eugh. Don't even- bleeahhh, gross! Ew!"

Anna laughed and gave Emma back her soul gem. "Here, I'm giving it back to you, so we've broken up now. Happy?"

"No! That was so, so gross. Why did you say that out loud?!"

"To make you freak out, mostly," said Anna, brushing back a stray lock of hair. "Your soul gem is very pretty, by the way. The filigree is quite nice."

"Thanks," said Emma, returning her gem to ring form. "Just please, never imply we're lovers ever again. For my sanity, if nothing else."

"Alright, alright, calm down," said Anna with a roll of her eyes. "I promise not to make jokes about you handing people your soul."

They fell silent, thinking about what was about to happen in their lives.

"The future doesn't look too bright, does it?" asked Emma after a moment.

"Not really," said Anna. "But the night is supposed to be darkest just before the dawn, right?"

"I guess that's true."

"Hey Emma?"

"Yeah?"

"You know I love you, right?"

"You're not making a joke again, are you?"

Anna punched her sister in the arm. "I'm trying to be supportive here, ass."

"Ow, okay, sorry, sorry," said Emma, rubbing her arm but smiling anyway. "But yeah, I know you love me. We couldn't have gotten through these years otherwise."

"So, don't die, okay?" said Anna, sniffing. "I don't want to lose you, not before we're both stupidly old or something, okay?"

"Hey, I'm not going to just die," said Emma comfortingly. "Training is actually useful, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm just being morbid again," said Anna, wiping away more tears. "Look at me blubbering, I feel like such a crybaby."

"Don't be stupid, Sarah gave me these handkerchiefs for a reason," said Emma, pulling Anna into a hug and sitting them down on a bench. "Go ahead and cry, and you'll feel better and then move on. Okay?"

"I'll take my leave then, if it's all the same to you," said Kyuubey, hopping out of Anna's arms and heading towards the elevator. "We may or may not ever meet again, Anna and Emma Sinclair. Anna, I hope your potential never leaves you, so that should the time come, you may have your wish granted. Emma, I wish you good fortune in the war, and that your soul gem will shine brightly."

Then he was gone, vanishing in mid-step.

"Well, we have the roof to ourselves," said Emma.

"I'm not going to just cry on command for you," said Anna, slightly peeved.

"I could tickle you until you cried," said Emma. "But, as it turns out, I'm not seven anymore."

"Well, you did steal my cookies when we were seven."

"That time with the synthesizer, right?"

"Yeah, you made me cry, and then panicked for half an hour and kept feeding me your cookies," recounted Anna.

"What happened after that?"

"Well, first, Mum and Dad turned the parental controls on…" The two sisters cast back to their bygone days as children, counting their blessings as they laughed and cried at the past, the present, and the future. The past, because it wasn't until you saw your death that realized how precious life was. The present, because of how much it had changed everything all at once. The future, because it was unknown but ended the same way for everyone.

How else could one cope?

(-)

The sky had darkened by the time Anna had cried herself out.

"Jeez, was I ever this weepy when I first contracted?" asked Mimori over telepathy, sprawled out on a bench.

"Give them their space," said Mei, in the same medium. "It's obvious they're close. Unusual for siblings."

"It depends," said Sarah, sitting demurely on a bench with her legs crossed and hands folded in her lap. "My relationship with my brother is perfectly friendly, for example."

"Yeah, and that one girl in C Company is happy that her family's cut ties with her for being a lesbian, so."

"Oh, for the love of the Goddess, can we not talk about this?" thought Heather. "Let's just get Emma up to speed on the basics, then go watch that movie we were planning on. We can worry about metaphysical concepts later."

"She has a point," agreed Sarah, nodding in Heather's direction. "I can take care of it, and I'll ask for help if I'm not getting through, alright?"

The group nodded, falling silent. A moment later, the elevator dinged.

"How was it?" asked Sarah out loud, in deference to Anna's unknown telepathic status. "Many tears all around, I see."

"Just a little too much nostalgia," reassured Emma. "And some excessively morbid thinking on Anna's part."

"But we're ready to go to whatever you guys want do next," continued Anna. "Here, Sarah, your handkerchiefs."

The nanobot impregnated fabric had already dried and cleaned itself. Anna's complexion was also rapidly clearing up, her implants restoring them to homeostasis.

"Thank you," said Sarah, folding them up neatly and placing them back in her various pockets. "We were just talking about our plans for the evening, actually. If you're up to it, how do you feel about getting some basic orientation business out of the way?"

"I'm alright with that," said Emma. "Anna, how about you?"

"Whatever you want is fine," said Anna, smiling back. "I'm curious about what you can do as well."

"In that case, let's get started," said Sarah briskly. "Ladies," she said to the girls behind them. "If you have any tips, don't be shy."

"Don't worry, we'll be sure to tell you if you're screwing it up," said Kanae deadpan.

"Anyway," said Sarah, turning her back to the laughter at Kanae's comment. "Why don't you transform first, so we can see how you're kitted out? It's as easy as thinking, watch."

Sarah raised her right hand, where her soul gem was in ring form, and snapped her fingers. In an instant, she was enveloped in streamers of amber light, which wrapped around her for a moment before they shattered and revealed her magical girl outfit. Sarah was dressed in a black, pinstriped, three-piece suit that recalled the 1920s, with a pocket square in the jacket, and a plain black tie around her neck. Her soul gem was fixed to her suit as an elegant lapel pin.

"See?" said Sarah, catching a fedora that dropped out of the air and flipping it onto her head. "Easy. You don't even have to snap, really."

"Like this?" asked Emma, holding out her hand. She hadn't even finished the question before blue light rippled out of her soul gem, splashing onto her body like water breaking over a rock. When it was over, Emma had exchanged her clothes for a robe-based outfit, the lower hem trimmed back to the knee. While the top of the robes remained like their traditional counterparts, albeit slimmed to be more form fitting and with holes that showed her shoulders, the skirt had been cut into three sections.

At the front and back, the skirt dropped straight down, like a sash, and ended in a triangular cut like the end of a men's dress tie. It was wider at the back than at the front. The sides wrapped around behind the sash-like parts, cut at an angle so that they swept up and left her legs free to move. The robes' base color was white and dyed crimson along the edges of the cuts and the top of the arms and shoulders, with the sashes taking on more dye than the skirt and arms.

The analogy to blood was not lost upon Emma as she looked down to examine the outfit, which was supplemented by a cuirass and two quarter-skirts of armor, tied around her waist. Flexing her hands, Emma found that she was also wearing gloves of fine, grippy leather. A moment later, she realized that she had boots that came up to her knees, made of the same material but with a heavy sole, perfect for smashing things, and brass fittings for the laces. Finally, she felt a weight on her right ear, and reached up to feel her soul gem shaped into a long earring, with beads and a tassel of crimson trailing down and onto her shoulder.

"Oh very nice," said Sarah, looking Emma up and down. "I'm almost envious, you look like some sort of medieval assassin."

"Maybe from a sim or something," said Emma, twisting around to examine more of herself. "I kinda feel like a dork in this. At least your clothing's, you know, normal and stuff."

"Don't feel too bad, Mimori's got a sparkly deal with miscellaneous unnecessary ruffles," confided Sarah. "It's really quite ridiculous, but she gets very impressive illusionary powers, so I guess it evens out."

"Hey, it's not that bad!" protested Mimori.

"No, it really is," countered Kanae with a smile. The two immediately got into something of a shouting match, with Mei and Heather not-so-subtly egging them on.

"Does that happen a lot?" asked Emma.

"Apparently yes," said Sarah, raising an eyebrow at the two bickering girls before turning back to her charge. "Let's see what your main power is next."

"The same way as I transformed?"

"That's correct," said Sarah with a smile. "Very good thinking, Emma, now let's see what you can do."

Emma took a deep breath and held out her right hand. The idea flickered into her mind like the answer to a test question she'd studied for.

"Emma wants big boom," she said with a grin, a football-sized sphere howling into place on her palm. The outer shell consisted of finely spun fabric of clouds, pressing against her palm angrily as they tried to escape the grasp of the swirling vortex in the center of the ball.

Instinctively, Emma lofted the ball high in the air, then leapt after it. As the ball reached the apex of its trajectory, Emma twisted in midair to face the wall. Keeping her eyes on the sphere, she now rotated backwards, pulling one leg up to get just enough air to stay level with the ball, then swinging her opposite leg up and over to send the sphere hurtling downwards into a cluster of bushes.

There was a brief rushing noise of air being sucked into a vacuum, followed by the longest fraction of a second of silence Emma had ever heard.

The concussive wave that blasted out right after didn't even make her flinch as she flipped herself back over and landed in a crouch on the ground, wide grin splitting her face.

"Hell yes!" she cheered, pumping a fist in the air as fragments of plant matter rained down. "And it's a scissors kick from Emma Sinclair for the win!"

"Not much of a win for us," groused Anna, who had tumbled off of her bench from the impact. Bits of shattered plant matter and dirt stuck to her hair and clothing. "Yuck."

"A little warning would be nice!" said Heather sharply, she and the other magical girls having ducked under a barrier generated by Mei. The impact of the vortex sphere had been much closer to them than it had been to Emma and Anna, and everyone had responded as they'd been trained: duck for the nearest barrier generator.

"And perhaps a little forethought, hm?" said Sarah with a raised eyebrow as she walked back to the Sinclairs. "You've completely destroyed a perfectly good set of bushes, you know."

"Ah, sorry," said Emma sheepishly. Her football of boom had completely torn apart the cluster of bushes she'd kicked it into, cratering out the fixture that held soil and plant in place. Torn, in this case, was quite literal, as even a cursory examination of what remained showed deep gouges and rips from what was apparently wind rushing fast enough to stop caring about what was in its way.

"Still, I do have to admit, that was quite impressive," conceded Sarah after a moment, breaking into a smile as she shook her head. "You're going to be a force on the battlefield, that's for sure, and you've got a knack for aerial maneuver that'll prove useful."

"Aerial maneuver?" asked Emma. "Was that what that was? I just figured becoming a magical girl gave you better fine motor skills."

"No, a lot of it is your magic helping you along," explained Sarah. "A lot of it is instinctual, but if you consciously think about it, it's possible to get from the roof to the ground in about twenty seconds. Falling with style, as it were."

Emma looked out the polyglas windows, splattered now with fragments of plant and earth. That was really possible now? Maybe if she jumped to there, then there, and then-

"Don't even think about it, you'll get the training for it later," said Sarah, calling Emma's attention back to her. "For now, stick to trying to keep up with the others during a patrol, and you'll be doing well. Let's see what weapons you have."

"And tell us before you try and use them!" said Mei, before Emma could summon her primary weapon. "If I need to defend myself again, I'd rather be prepared for it."

"Sure thing," said Emma with a nod. "Alright, here goes then." She flicked a hand out and summoned a halberd with a thought, grinning at the seven foot long, polished wooden shaft and the surprisingly small and light ax head at the end. This was combined with a long metal point at the end of the shaft, allowing her to spear as well as hack, and a long, gently curved spike on the reverse of the ax head. "Hehe, awesome!"

"Careful now," said Sarah as Emma swung it around in an arc, twisted and tossed it upwards in a high loop, caught it, and spun it back down to the ground, where she flipped it upright and planted it point upwards. "Don't let it go to your head. You should know the basics of fighting with it, but don't get careless. It's still a weapon, not a toy."

"I know, I know," said Emma, still looking at her halberd with an admiring gaze. "But man, does it feel good to use it."

"Jeez, you're such a jock," huffed Anna, stepping over to examine her sister's weaponry. "You were just like this when we were younger, going on and on about the new football strategy you were planning."

"Ah, you played football as a child?" asked Sarah. "Were you planning on pursuing that as a goal?"

"I was, until we moved to Mitakihara," said Emma with a nod. "I've been keeping up with the literature though, and Anna and I play unguided chess as much as we can."

"Interesting," said Sarah, making a note of the chess in Emma's personnel file. "Well, in any case, there's nothing more for us to do here," said Sarah, dismissing her transformation. "Sparring is going to damage this place more than you already have."

"Alright then." Emma canceled her transformation as well, the halberd dissolving into bright motes of light as her soul gem reappeared on her finger. "Should I go home and tell my parents? They'll be home soon."

"It's probably best to do that sooner rather than later," said Sarah with a nod and a commiserating smile. "We'll drop the others off where we're staying and then go to your home."

Emma sighed. "Yeah. Let's get this over with."


	3. Enterprising Young Ladies

_To call it a demon __"hunt" __is, in my opinion, a little melodramatic. When we go out and destroy demons, it__'__s a clinical process that__'__s designed to minimize casualties while destroying as much as we can as quickly as possible. It__'__s more a harvest than anything else._

_-Colonel Shizuki Nakano, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Regiment, 3rd Magical Division of the Euphrates_

* * *

_Oh man, my first demon hunt. That was an experience. In boredom. I mean, really, I was completely underwhelmed by it. I guess as a kid, I was thinking __"__oh hey, this__'__ll be something cool__"__, but all the older girls just sort of established a perimeter and pounded the demons into submission. Such a drag. _

_-1st Lieutenant Ayanna Desai, A Company, 9th Battalion, 5th Regiment, 1st Magical Division of the Nile_

* * *

The talk went about as well as expected. Which was to say, extremely poorly. As it turned out, Emma's parents did, in fact, care about the fact that Emma had contracted, though for the life of her Emma couldn't figure out why. According to Sarah, the shouting and arguing were normal, and doubtless she had evidence from other girls that corroborated this, but that didn't erase the bitter taste in Emma's mouth.

It would help, she felt, if she got to punch something sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately, the next demon hunt she had signed up for was not scheduled for until later that week, which was just as well, as she found herself suddenly besieged with medical appointments, a host of things-to-remember, and some time picking up new gear. The TacComp, installed the day after she'd contracted and coming fully online just a day ago, had been a particularly intriguing development, and she'd spent several hours with it on the roof avoiding her parents. They had now decided to stay at home from work for whatever ungodly reason. She had her brand new SW 155 Officer's Sidearm stored in her desk with her grief cubes and the accompanying robot, which she and Anna both found rather cute.

As it turned out, there was supposed to be some sort of social event before the demon hunt. According to the invite, it was supposed to be an informal gathering, but Emma thought it prudent to double check with Sarah before going.

"No, it's really not necessary to go to any lengths for this," Sarah had reassured her over vidcall. "It's just a sort of magical girl excursion out into Mitakihara. Dress in something comfortable and don't be intimidated by anyone. Nobody's going to bully you or anything."

"Shouldn't I try to make a good impression though?" asked Emma.

"You'll be able to do that well enough by being calm and relaxed when you're there," said Sarah with a smile. "Really, Emma, don't worry about this so much. Take a deep breath before you walk through the doors and you'll be fine. None of us from the 8th Ganges bit when you met us, right?"

"Ah, that's true," Emma had said sheepishly. "Magical girls aren't really that different from us normal girls, right?"

"You're magical too now," Sarah had said with a giggle. "But just by saying that you've proved your own point."

And that was how Emma ended up arriving at the sixtieth floor of a commerce tower in jeans, a t-shirt, and a comfortable old hoody. Taking a deep breath, Emma recalled Sarah's advice and pushed aside her nerves as best as possible before stepping out of her transit pod and onto the platform.

The arrival alcove that she had landed at was like any other opening to a specific, highly exclusive establishment. Polyglass panels formed floor to ceiling windows and doors, with the building itself riding almost flush with the transit tube. More notable, however, was the overall size of the alcove, being sized only half as large as the usual reception area, if that. It demonstrated an establishment that plainly did not need a large space to do its business.

It was, however, the interior that really struck Emma. It was a multicultural fusion place named something unpronounceably Icelandic. It translated to "unappealing", a name that did not really seem like a good idea to Emma. Even more oddly, the decorations were almost certainly based off of traditional Chinese aesthetics, which had her scratching her head in the doorway.

"Why would you do this?" she wondered out loud.

"It's apparently a symbolic gesture," said a voice behind Emma. She started and spun around, finding a Japanese girl standing behind her but gazing thoughtfully at the machined aluminum name plate. "Infopedia says it's supposed to represent the joining of the exotic west with the roots of the east."

"That's completely ridiculous," said Emma, folding her arms and looking back around to the gilded pillars and miscellaneous bronze lions. "Surely there's a better way than… this."

"Probably," said the girl, named Mina Hideaki, rank captain, and a mind controller from the Ganges Sector, with a shrug, before given Emma a skeptical look. "But are you or I interior designers?"

"Well, no."

"So I guess we shouldn't really judge. You're one of the new contractees?"

"Yeah," said Emma, putting her hands in her hoodie's pockets. "I, uh, guess you're supposed to be the Q&A Girl?"

"Got it in one," said Mina with a small smile. "You're early. I like that. Come on, let's get a few drinks from the bar while we wait for the others."

Emma kept her intoxication controls on while they waited, but she did find out that she was a fan of Manhattans. The bar was decorated similarly to the entry way, which was really starting to get very disconcerting. Mina didn't seem to be much of a conversationalist, which didn't help Emma feel less awkward with the situation, but thankfully the other girls arrived, seven in total, within the next fifteen minutes, all of them looking somewhat more carefully dressed than Emma but all plainly nervous.

"You know," thought Mina discretely to Emma. "You're very well put together for all this."

"I have a good mentor," replied Emma with a mental shrug. "She gave me some good advice."

"You'll have to tell me about her later, she seems like an interesting girl," said Mina with a raised eyebrow, before ordering everyone a drink.

"Oh, I'm alright without one," demurred Ayane Nakamura, a flier with deep brown, braided hair from Osaka and eyes to match.

"You don't need to turn your intoxication controls off," said Emma, taking a sip of her Manhattan. "These things are pretty tasty as is."

"Sorry, I just don't like the taste of alcohol," said Ayane with a sheepish smile. "It's a little awkward, but I'd really prefer a glass of water."

"You've had alcohol before then?" asked Emma curiously as the bartender set the glass of water down in front of Ayane.

"Well, only a little," said Ayane, taking a sip of her water. "My parents have some red wine on occasion, and I tried some once. It wasn't very good."

"Ah. My dad has a decanter of whiskey, but I never had the urge to try," said Emma. "Well, until now that is."

"Mm."

"What did you, ah, study before contracting?" asked Emma, searching for some topic of conversation. "Well, I guess, what's studying ornithology like? I mean, er-."

"It was a lot of fun," said Ayane, saving Emma from her increasingly awkward attempts to ask the same question. "I worked at the Species Diversity Preserve as an intern."

"Really? You must know a lot."

"Well, I wouldn't say that I'm particularly knowledgable," said Ayane, blushing a little and fiddling with the end of her braid. "The scientists there all had been working for years and years, but I did my best to keep up."

"Well, compared to them, no," said Emma as the others began to talk amongst themselves. Apparently, none of them thought they could be as awkward as she had been. "But, for our age group, you must really know what you're doing."

"I guess," said Ayane, looking away and flushing more deeply. "But ah, anyway, what about you? What did you study?"

"Oh, well, I guess I studied Logistics," said Emma with a shrug. "I didn't really like it though."

"But, if you didn't like Logistics, why did you study it?" asked Ayane, tilting her head to the side.

"Parents."

"Parents?"

"I am… not very happy with them at the moment," said Emma, before rapidly changing the topic. "What research did you do?"

That set Ayane off with a happy smile, detailing the research she'd been conducting and pausing only to order a meal. Emma was forced to scramble to keep up through Infopedia and her TacComp feeding her information directly. Emma barely understood what was happening, but she gathered that it was something about bird migration paths post Unification in comparison to pre-Unification data.

"So you just had to record which birds came through the Preserve during the year?" asked Emma. "Doesn't that seem, I dunno, a bit menial?"

"Oh, that's normal for interns at my level," said Ayane with a shrug. "You're supposed to distinguish yourself in the little things and make your way upwards. Since the Preserve's pretty open, you just take your data and collaborate with the others over the net."

"Well, it's not really my thing, so I guess I'll take your word for it," said Emma with a shrug and a grin. Their food arrived at that point, and conversation lulled around the table as the diners collectively tucked in.

"Say, what is that?" asked Emma after a moment, nodding at Ayane's plate. Their orders had been given over their implants, and Ayane had launched right back into her enthusiastic explanation without telling Emma what Ayane had ordered.

"I'm not really sure, actually," said Ayane truthfully, slicing off a piece of cubular meat product. She gave it an experimental sniff, then nibbled at a corner. "Tastes good though."

"Well, if you're lucky, it's probably goose liver or something," said Emma with a laugh. Personally, she'd rather know exactly what went into the mystery meat, rather than being told later.

Ayane chewed thoughtfully, then swallowed. "Nah, foie gras is a completely different texture," she said. "Have you tried it? It comes out of the synthesizer just as well as anything else."

Emma wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, I wasn't really a fan. Too pungent."

"Oh, did you not get it seasoned?" asked Ayane, popping another slice of meat product into her mouth.

"It comes with seasoning?"

Ayane rolled her eyes. "Of course it does, it's a synthesizer. It makes basically anything!"

Emma speared a green bean with a shrug. "Eh, I know what I like, and it's easier to just stick to that. I don't really care all that much about what food I eat, as long as it keeps me going."

"That's fair," conceded Ayane. "Though really, I'll bet if you took fresh intestines and stewed them-."

"And that's the end of that line of conversation," said Emma with a grimace. She didn't relish that mental image. "What're your powers?"

Ayane giggled but moved on. "Well, I'm sure you've already looked me up, but my principal power is self-powered flight."

"Yeah, apparently it's pretty rare."

"I guess, but it doesn't feel very special to me," said Ayane.

"What's your speed limit?"

"Mach 1.38 in Earth's atmosphere, at sea level."

Emma nearly choked on a piece of potato. "What?! You can break the sound barrier?!"

"It's not that impressive," said Ayane bashfully. "I mean, any given air supremacy drone in the Army can achieve that easily."

"Yeah, but it's still cool," said Emma. "You can go faster at altitude, right? Since you don't need to worry about the air density effecting an engine or something?"

"Uh, yeah, that's correct."

"So, technically speaking, you could do mach seven at ten thousand meters!" said Emma enthusiastically.

"That's a terrible idea," said Ayane flatly. "I'd light on fire."

"Oh," said Emma, disappointed. "That's… that's bad."

"Yeah. Although," said Ayane thoughtfully, "I guess it's not impossible that they'll teach me how to form an aeroshell in flight."

"It's pretty likely, actually," thought Mina telepathically from two seats over. Emma and Ayane flinched. "Heh, forget about the telepathy? Anyway, that's almost certainly covered in basic training, especially since drag's a big factor on your performance in combat."

"That's good," Ayane thought back. "What other basic skills would we learn?"

"Well, there's telekinesis, attack augmentation, breathing underwater…"

It was a long list, and Emma left her TacComp to recording the information as she glanced around the table. The other girls seemed to have loosened up and were chatting amiably about various things, none of which Emma particularly cared about or hadn't already talked about with Ayane.

"Emma, are you listening?"

"Eh? Oh, sorry, um," Emma paused as she played back Ayane's question. "Well, I do live here, but I guess a walking tour of the city could be fun."

(-)

It turned out that Ayane was living temporarily at a hotel near the starport, in close vicinity to the first church of the Cult of Hope. This also meant that she'd actually seen Kyouko Sakura, in the flesh. Granted, it had been from several dozen feet away as the ancient magical girl had been speaking to parishioners, but celebrity sightings were still celebrity sightings.

"Jeez, you're lucky," groused Emma as they followed their tour's route through the city. "I mean, celebrities usually aren't just walking around near where you live."

"I know, right?" said Ayane brightly, who was looking with interest at the first church of the Cult of Hope's main facade. "I just asked the branch office in Osaka if they had any places I could stay in Mitakihara before I deployed, and they sent me here. I didn't think to look it up before I left."

"Doesn't Osaka have a starport?" asked Emma as they paused briefly for the tour to take still images, taking in its unique architecture and the large number of magical girls making their way in and out. "It's a pretty important city center, after all."

"Yeah, but Mitakihara City's the… the sort of capital, I guess, of all things magical," said Ayane, as they continued. "I wanted to see it before I left, you know?"

"Not really, I live here," said Emma with a shrug, following. "It was kinda cool in theory back when I first moved though."

The two fell into a natural silence, their implants automatically updating their route with a line of white light projected in their vision and leading them onward.

"That's my hotel over there," said Ayane, after a minute of walking, nodding at a commerce tower to their left.

"It looks nice," said Emma. "What's it like?"

"Well, all you get is a bedroom and a bathroom, so I guess it's really not that different from living at home," said Ayane with a shrug. "The sheets and towels and stuff are nicer though."

"Do you get a synthesizer in your room?" asked Emma.

"Oddly enough, no," said Ayane thoughtfully. "Although I don't know much about hotels, so it's probably justified somehow."

"I guess," shrugged Emma.

"Do you want to come up?" asked Ayane, as they passed in front of the building. "You seem kind of bored, and, well, the city's great and all, but…"

"The tour's a little dry?" asked Emma rhetorically. "Yeah, I agree. If you're sure, I guess, but I wouldn't want to impose."

Ayane smiled happily. "Nonsense, I invited you didn't I?"

The ride up the elevator to Ayane's room on the four hundredth floor was filled by Emma asking about Osaka. Now that Ayane had seen Mitakihara, did she find anything different?

"Not really," said Ayane as she opened the door to her small suite. "All the cities are connected anyway, so it's not like there's any particularly different culture. Although I guess there's more restaurants in Osaka."

The room was sparsely but sharply furnished, with the single bed against the wall and a desk opposite for the rare times a guest might need to write something down. The carpet was white, without adornment, and a small closet was secreted in the wall of the entryway. Opposite the closet was the bathroom, which combined toilet and bathtub. Sconces in the ceiling cast everything with auto-dimming incandescent-simulating light.

"Wow, it looks pretty fancy," said Emma, admiring the synthwood door jambs and surprisingly large bathtub.

"The best part, I think, is the window," said Ayane with a grin, leading Emma across the room to a wide, outward opening window framed by white curtains. "Check out this view."

"Wow," said Emma, as Ayane pushed open the windows and they leaned against the window frame.

The view from the MSY Corridor was entirely different from the view at Emma's home. Transit tubes and pedestrian walkways crisscrossed the airspace, and despite living relatively high up, Emma's field of view had extended only about a hundred meters before the nest of man-made objects obstructed any further sights. From here, though, it seemed like the whole of Mitakihara stretched out before her. There was the Church, obvious from here with its architecture, and there was MSY Governmental Affairs.

"You can see Mitakihara Tower One from here too," said Ayane, pointing out the high spire that had only grown with the years, getting renovated once every fifty years or so to continually dominate the skyline from a far. Now long buried under scaffolding, trusses, and other construction efforts, the maintenance platform at the ages-past peak of Tower One had been the gathering place for the legendary Mitakihara Four when they wanted to relax.

"This is really cool," said Emma, looking out across the expanse. "I mean, seriously, seriously cool."

"I'll bet they prioritize the new contractees, to impress them or something," said Ayane.

"That's a little cynical, don't you think?"

"Maybe a bit," conceded Ayane. "But if that IS the case, I'm still okay with taking advantage of it. I've spent hours just staring out over the city, listening to my TacComp talk about stuff."

"I would too," said Emma with a nod, resting her head on her folded arms. The two fell into a natural silence, taking in the view in the late afternoon sun.

"Have you-," began Ayane, before stopping suddenly. "…Nevermind."

"What is it?" asked Emma curiously.

"I- well, I was going to ask- but it seems too morbid to really talk about."

Emma raised an eyebrow. "If you wanted to talk about the possibility of dying…"

"No, no, that's the obvious part about making a contract," said Ayane with a sigh. "I guess I was just thinking about how the war's attrition rates are kind of horrendous. I… I was going to ask if you thought we should write out a will, before we deployed."

"There'll be time for that later," said Emma. "I mean, we still have to go through training, right? And then there's that garrison duty. So we're not going to be actually doing any serious combat for at least a month."

"Yeah, but…"

"But?"

"I… I guess I'm just scared," said Ayane. "I'm what, fourteen? And now I'm supposed to be a great defender of all this?" She gestured at the view in front of them. "We're going to war two days from now, and, and-." She broke off, swallowing hard.

"You're not alone though," said Emma, looking off into the distance. "I bet a lot of new girls are afraid."

"You're not."

"You kidding me? Of course I am," said Emma with a laugh. "I've got a twin sister, you know. She's really important to me."

"But you were so calm at lunch!"

"I've got a mentor to help me through some of this stuff," said Emma. "Don't you?"

"I, no, no I don't," said Ayane sadly. "The girl who recruited me brought me to Osaka's MSY branch and left as soon as possible."

"Oh, that's- wow," Emma was flabbergasted. "Wow. That was irresponsible."

"That's what the girl at the desk said," said Ayane with a frown. "But I was too busy freaking out about being able to fly to really be bothered. I didn't really start getting afraid until the flight here."

"Well, it's normal to be excited," said Emma. "I mean, you just turned into a being of impossible power, it's not like you're going to be all that concerned with the 'ifs' when you can do loop-de-loops."

Ayane nodded, and sat down on the bed. "How're you handling it? Being a magical girl?"

"To be honest, it's not sunk in at all," said Emma, falling backwards onto Ayane's bed with a thump, before raising her hand to look at the ring on her finger. "It's still kinda surreal, to think that my soul's in this little gem now."

"Yeah," said Ayane, summoning her own soul gem, colored soft amber and embossed with bronze. She looked at it contemplatively. "You know, we could accidentally kill ourselves if we tripped and our gem tumbled off a balcony."

"And you were talking about being too morbid earlier," said Emma with a roll of her eyes.

"Well it's your fault for making it not awkward to talk about things like that," said Ayane, sticking her tongue out childishly at Emma. "Besides, it's not like saying it will make it happen."

"Not true!" said Emma, pointing a finger at Ayane emphatically. "First rule of football: never actually say what you need to do to win, because then you'll never actually succeed."

"But how would you tell your team?" asked Ayane, brow furrowed in confusion.

"Eye signals," said Emma with a nod. "A true team needs only to look each other in the eye to communicate everything they need. Such a bond transcends even romance! It is as if all the team were bound together as one soul, pulsating with the need to-!"

Ayane threw a pillow at her. The situation, and the pillows, deteriorated from there.

(-)

"I guess this is it."

Emma was standing in the starport receiving area with her family, Ayumi, Sarah, and Ayane. Sarah was still on leave, but said quite explicitly that she would be sending Emma off. Ayane, it had turned out, was leaving on the same date. Since her family was still in Osaka, she had already said her goodbyes.

The demon hunt the previous day had gone off without a hitch, with the new contractees integrating well with the main force. They had ended the hunt with a double checking that they had all their new equipment and upgrades from orientation, then exhortations to not miss their flight. Of course, this meant that Emma was early once more, too anxious to sit around at home until it was time to leave.

Now, though, she regretted getting to the starport so early. The impending departure now unavoidably obvious, waiting with her family and Ayumi had been torture, and she had fidgeted quietly the entire time as Ayane and Sarah made stilted conversation with Ayumi and Emma's family until her shuttle number had been called.

"You'll be back before you know it," said Ayumi with a confident nod. "We'll all be here, obviously, so get back in one piece, alright?"

"I will," said Emma. "Though I might have to regrow a limb."

"That's fine, it'll just be something else to talk about," said Anna, once again trying not to cry. "Just be sure that the stories you bring back are all good ones, okay? Nothing sad."

"I'll do my best," said Emma. "No guarantees."

The girls laughed at this. They weren't entirely sure why they were laughing, but it was certainly better than crying. As their laughter died, Emma sighed and turned to her parents. They stared at each other for a moment.

"You know, it'd be stupid of me to forget the first twelve years of my life," Emma said finally. "These last two years were hard, and I'm still angry about them-," both her parents winced but let her continue "-but thank you. For before then."

"Emma," said her mother, "We just-."

Emma held up a hand. "I- no. No, not right now. This isn't the time. I'm.. I'm about to go away, and I might end up dying. I know you love me, okay? But I can't deal with any more than that."

They looked at each other again. "Alright," her father sighed, finally. "I, at least, can understand where you're coming from on this. Just… just come back to us, okay Emma?"

Emma swallowed. "I can do that."

Silence descended.

"So, before you go, some advice," said Sarah, stepping forward and calling Emma and Ayane's attentions. "First and foremost is don't give up. Whatever you do, never doubt that what you're doing will, in the end, help somehow."

"What if.. what if we mess up and-?" began Ayane.

"Even if that happens, nobody is going to judge you for doing the best you can in the situation," said Sarah reassuringly. "Decisions made in the midst of battle will never be perfect. That's the second thing you two need to remember: your best is always enough. We recognize those who go beyond that because it is hard to do so."

"What about promotions and our careers?" asked Emma. "Shouldn't we try and move up the ladder?"

Sarah sighed. "The military is not for everyone, Emma. Maybe you'll find that you do well in the military, or maybe it's just not possible for you to reintegrate after your first deployment. But don't go into this thinking that you have to move up the chain of command. There is no shame in retiring the same rank as when you enlisted. Do you two understand?"

Emma and Ayane nodded. With another sigh, Sarah placed her hands on both their shoulders.

"Alright, good," she said, gripping their shoulders tightly before letting go. "There's nothing more I can say that can prepare you any more. Both of you, feel free to call me if you ever need help and my status is set to available."

"But, isn't that something you only do with your mentor?" asked Ayane. "I don't have one, and it'd be impolite to barge in on your relationship with Emma."

"It's fine, don't worry about it," said Emma, nudging Ayane. "Come talk to me and I can ask Sarah for you, if you're not comfortable with it, okay?"

Ayane looked between the two of them for a moment before nodding. "Okay."

Anna grasped her sister by the hand. "Make sure to call me too, okay? If you ever get some free time, I want to know how you're doing. Mum and Dad as well."

"Of course," said Emma, with a nod. She turned and caught her parents' eyes, which shone with unshed tears. Emma bit her lip and quickly looked away. "Absolutely. I'll do so as soon as possible, but training is going to be pretty busy."

"I know, but don't forget, okay?" said Anna one last time. She let go of Emma's hand, letting Ayumi step forward.

"So," Ayumi said, folding her arms. "Like I said, we'll be here, so just get back here in one piece, you soccer-obsessed lazy-bones."

"I've told you a thousand times already, it's called football," said Emma with a smile. "Get it right, nerd."

The two chuckled at each other. It still seemed odd that they were friends, but what else would they call their relationship?

"Your guys' shuttle is going to leave soon," said Ayumi, nodding at the entry way. "You better get going."

"Yeah, we should," said Emma, looking down. She nudged her bag with her foot, packed with a few sets of civilian casual and formal wear, her grief cubes, the CubeBot that came with them, and her sidearm. Everything else, she could retrieve from her personal datacloud. The bag teetered briefly, before coming back upright as the final boarding call for their shuttle flickered across her vision.

"Al-alright then," said Emma, swallowing nervously again. She looked around to her family, Ayumi, and her mentor. It would be a long time until she met them in peace like this. "I'll see you again soon."

With her bag dutifully following behind her, Emma turned and stepped onto the shuttle.


	4. Set Phasers to Stun

_Training as a magical girl is one of the most intense things I__'__ve ever experienced. You come in and don__'__t know anything, and then suddenly are thrown into the some of the most difficult things you__'__ll ever have to master. A lot of girls lose themselves by the end of it. _

_-Flight Lieutenant Suzanne Lu, 2nd Squadron, 5th Aer Magi Wing, 2nd Army Group of the Rhine_

* * *

_You find out a lot of unexpected things about yourself and about others during training. The sweetest little things can turn into complete monsters in battle, and the biggest bullies can be the most devoted warriors at your side. Discount nothing, because it gets crazy quickly._

_-Captain Esmerelda Lopez, 2nd Battalion, 10th Regiment, 5th Army Group of the Mekong_

* * *

Emma fought for breath, running as fast as she could, then running faster because she couldn't stop.

The Squids had smashed through their lines, moving impossibly quickly. She had no idea what was happening , there was too much jamming, she could see the contrails of the evac dropships and knew that she had to run for it.

A crump, behind her, and then suddenly Emma was flying, spinning end over end over end until she was soaring over a cliff and gliding forward, arms somehow stabilizing her until she crashed to the ground by a riverbank. Dripping and sputtering, Emma pushed herself up out of the river and was met by the gaze of a Cephalopod Shock Trooper advancing forward, weapon raised.

A flicker of light, and suddenly Emma couldn't feel anything in her left arm. She looked down in shock and saw nothing but a charred stump, still smoldering. Snarling, she raised her right arm, then couldn't because it had been burnt away too.

And still, the Shock Trooper advanced forward, striding into the growing, rumbling water like it wasn't there, even as Emma had to strain with her remaining limbs to stay upright. Unable to keep her balance, Emma stumbled and fell backwards into the river, the icy cold water burning into the stumps of her arms.

In desperation, Emma summoned a windstorm, trying to push back the Shock Trooper. Inexorably, emotionlessly, it advanced, the windstorm doing nothing as it ignited a plasma cutter. With the hiss of servos, it stepped forward and planted a boot into Emma's chest, pressing her to the riverbed and submerging her head. Immediately, she began pulling oxygen out of the water magically, but this didn't matter as her throat was crushed a second later by the Shock Trooper's grip, pulling her up from the water at arms length.

Missing, now, both arms and without air, Emma could do nothing but watch as the Trooper tilted its head, intrigued by the blood trickling out of Emma's mouth from her shattered trachea. Then, as if bored, it lifted its plasma cutter and thrust it forward. The tip pierced her chest-

-and Emma awoke with a gasp , rolling out of bed into a crouch. Her TacComp suppressed her responses before she could summon her costume and weaponry, but it was still enough for Ayane to startle awake.

"Are you alright?" Ayane asked sleepily, after she figured out what was going on.

"I'm fine," said Emma with a groan, sitting down on the floor and leaning back against her bed. "Just the usual."

"Well, I guess the timing wasn't all that bad," said Ayane, checking her chronometer. "Looks like it's dinner time, then more sims."

"Of course there's more sims," sighed Emma, picking herself up from the ground wearily. "Goddess, I feel like I got exactly zero sleep."

"It's only been two days," said Ayane, pushing back her sheets and swinging her legs to the ground. "Are you sure you're alright? I thought the first nightmare was a fluke, but this has happened twice now."

"I'm fine, it's nothing a bit of magic won't solve," said Emma with a yawn, before revitalizing herself with a flicker of light. "Nn. I kinda want to go back to sleep…."

"Come on," said Ayane with a roll of her eyes, pulling Emma to her feet and pushing her towards the door. " You can nap in the sim later ."

"Agh!" Emma nearly tripped and had to do some fancy footwork to stay upright. "Hey, hey, don't push, I'm going!"

"Being lazy again, Emma?" asked a passing girl, raising an eyebrow in amusement.

"No, of course not Varsha," said Emma primly, adjusting her hoodie and shoving her hands into its pockets with mild indignation. "Ayane's just being pushy."

"I'm being punctual," retorted Ayane, shutting their door. "How're you Varsha? Did you sleep well?"

"Ah, well enough," said Varsha with a shrug, brushing her bangs out of her eyes as they began walking towards the dining hall. "You know I don't really sleep all that often anyway, but it was relaxing."

Emma shook her head in disbelief. "I just don't understand how you can do that."

"What, not be a bag of lazy bones?"

"Oh don't you start!" said Emma, pointing a finger at Varsha. "I get enough crap from my friend back home."

"Ah, fine, fine," said Varsha, backing off. "But still, you do sleep an awful lot."

"No, you're all just weird," said Emma, sticking her tongue out, to Ayane's amusement. "Anyway. How'd you do in the last sim? I got killed pretty quick, so I never really found out."

"I did alright," said Varsha. "Me and Rebecca managed to hold a position pretty effectively. But then we lost our air cover."

"Ah, sorry about that," said Ayane. "We weren't expecting that many drones to show up. At least you died quickly."

"Some consolation prize, " said Varsha with a snort. "Anyway, without Ayane and Company, we got overrun pretty quickly from there. I don't know where Rene went off to, but I don't remember her being around when the Shock Troopers hit."

Emma whistled. "Damn. It's a good thing they suppress the emotions on those memories , I'd hate to have that hanging over me."

Varsha nodded, grimacing. "From the looks of it, it was definitely extremely unpleasant. I-."

Varsha was interrupted by an excited Chinese girl draping herself onto Varsha's shoulders. "Heya Varsha, you going over the sim with the others?"

"Gah! Don't do that, Rebecca !" said Varsha, shooting an elbow at Rebecca's gut.

"Bah, you know you love it," said Rebecca with a grin, dodging the blow. "You're always so serious, Varsha."

"I'm not serious at all," grumbled Varsha, face tinted red as she turned to Emma and Ayane. "Help me out here, guys."

Emma was strongly tempted to leave Varsha to her fate, but a glance at Ayane told her to help the poor girl. "Nah, you're not that serious, Varsha," agreed Emma. "There are a lot worse in our cohort."

"Yeah, but she's still serious," said Rebecca, poking a finger slowly into Varsha's cheek. "We've got an entire three weeks of sim time left, don't worry so much."

"You don't worry enough," scoffed Varsha, pushing Rebecca's finger away.

"But we worked so well together, don't you have any faith that we'll pull through in the field?"

Emma rolled her eyes at the couple as they reached a large intersection. The group paused, and Ayane and Emma both looked around for Rene. Just about everyone who'd met Varsha and Rebecca was convinced they were going to end up getting married, if they both survived. It certainly was enough of a fairy-tale pairing, Emma granted, but even though she and Ayane had spent many an hour dissecting how relationships worked, Emma remained unconvinced.

"There she is," said Ayane, pointing and waving at Rene's form wending its way through the crowd. "Rene! Over here!"

"Yes, I see that," said Rene dryly, nodding at each of the girls in turn. "How did you all sleep?"

"I slept well, thank you," said Ayane with a smile as Emma yawned hugely. "Emma on the other hand…"

"I had another nightmare," said Emma, shrugging as Varsha and Rebecca sent brief greetings Rene's way before going back to bickering about something again. "Ayane's a little concerned."

"I would be too, but magic is an extraordinary thing, isn't it?" asked Rene with a shrug. "As they said back in the ballet studio: if it worked once, practice and make it work every time."

"Even if it just makes other things worse?" asked Ayane skeptically.

"That was the choreographer's job," said Rene airily. "As a ballerina, my job was only to express the meaning of the choreography. In any case, I hope the nightmares pass, Emma. Even if we don't need to sleep, good rest is important."

"Thanks, I appreciate that," said Emma with a smile. "Let's get going though, we're making a clot in the hallway."

The group of five moved on.

"So how did you end up last round?" asked Emma as they entered the dining hall. "It sounded like Varsha and Rebecca had a good run of it."

"Oh, it was nothing spectacular," said Rene. "After you got shot, I pulled the platoons back and held the line. I was too frightened to fight properly like Varsha and Rebecca, I suppose."

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with that," said Ayane. "I remember seeing your defense. It was well conducted. You should be proud."

"Thank you, Ayane," said Rene. "Still, it is too bad. I wish to make a more positive contribution."

"A well conducted defense is just as important as a good offense," said Emma. "We learned that during tactics lecture, don't you remember?"

"Yes, yes, it is simply me being neurotic," said Rene, waving off Emma and Ayane's reassurances. "Rest assured, I won't be having any self esteem issues any time soon."

"Alright then," said Emma, before changing the topic. "Have you guys talked to your family at all since we got here?"

"Yes, it was… tense," said Rene. "My parents don't really approve. But, such is life, yes?"

"My parents wish I hadn't contracted," said Ayane with a nod. "But now that I'm here, there's nothing they can do about it. It's just really depressing, talking to them."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, my mom is always like…"

Emma shoved her hands deeper into her hoodie pockets as they stood in line at the synthesizer, listening quietly to the other girls talk. It struck her, at times like these, how truly fortunate she was to have a sister like Anna. Granted, she and her parents were still rather estranged, but Anna was being hugely supportive. They'd only been at training for a week, but Emma had made sure to send off a video message once a day, summarizing what she'd done and redacting anything that her TacComp said was too classified to distribute. Anna's responses could only be done in voice, but included snippets from their parents and Ayumi. The messages were always encouraging, and always made it a little easier to nap during break periods, with the accumulated stresses of the day made less so by Anna's comforting words.

"Emma, you're up," said Rene, nudging Emma in the arm. Emma blinked and scooted over to place her order in the synthesizer.

* * *

"I wonder if they'll split us up a bit this time," said Emma later, pulling her hair up and laying back against the VR Chair. She'd taken off her hoodie before hand, laying it on the armrest. "Change up the team dynamic, see what happens."

"I doubt it," said Ayane, undoing her braid and letting her hair rearrange itself appropriately. "It's a bit early in the sims, after all."

"I guess, but it would still be interesting," said Emma, the I/O cables clicking into place on the back of her neck and her vision graying out. "See you on the flip side."

Quickly, the fuzzing of her vision turned into outright darkness. Emma braced herself as, with something of a jolt, she lost feeling in her limbs. A light haziness began to consume her consciousness like water gently spilling out from the edges of a bowl. Emma let the current sweep her away, getting lost in the fog of semi-consciousness. It was a little like swimming, actually, except everything was warm and dry instead of cold and wet. It was…

It was…

….

"Eh?" Emma blinked away her drowsiness and rubbed at her eyes, sitting up. "What's up?"

"It's your turn to take the watch," said Rene, prodding at Emma's leg with the scabbard of her rapier. "I need to get my men off the line."

"Oh, right, sorry," said Emma, levering herself to her feet and picking up her battlepack. Technically, Rene was a few minutes early, but Emma didn't begrudge her. "How's 1st Platoon doing? Did you take any casualties this rotation?"

"Not many, only two wounded," said Rene. "The line will hold as long as we keep getting supplies, but we need to keep morale up."

"Duly noted," said Emma, climbing up out of the foxhole she'd been napping in. It was just after dawn, with the sun of the Cognitus system barely peeking over the flat, barely rippling horizon of the Adraxi Plain. Emma's augmented eyes allowed her to see the long chain of defensive fortifications drawn up along a ridge in the middle of the plain, with the cephalopod force opposite and fifty kilometers distant. Well within range of artillery and mortar fire, it was nevertheless proving to be frustratingly difficult to break the enemy line.

"Any tunnel collapses?" asked Emma as Rene followed her out. "Any tunnel drones get past our nets?"

"One or two, but that was in 2nd Division's sector," said Rene. "Our sector's quiet, it seems, but you know what they say."

"If it's quiet, it's too quiet," said Emma grimly with a nod. "Come on, let's rotate 1st out before something happens."

The two girls stole quietly along below the ridge line, trying not to be exposed to a sniper or call down artillery for no reason. Emma's platoon was already geared up, making Emma feel slightly incompetent for not being awake long ago. She shook the feeling off, and continued checking up on her unit. Everyone seemed ready, or as ready as they could be in a entrenched defensive like this. The handover proceeded as planned, with each fireteam getting updated and in position without causing a bombardment or a sniper attack. 1st Platoon wished them luck and withdrew, leaving Emma and her men to a long, tense round on the line.

"So, Chief, how's it going?" asked Emma, taking a seat next to her warrant officer with a sigh.

"Oh, you know how it is, sir," said Chief, inclining his power-armored head at her in greeting. "A whole lotta nada."

"You been keeping up with that manga you like?" asked Emma.

"Yeah, I got to download the latest issue while we were off the line," said Chief.

"How is it? Good issue this round?"

"Yeah, it was pretty interesting. Not much action, but we-."

A thunderous explosion rocked the ground as both Emma and Chief dived to the bottom of their foxhole.

"Get into cover!" Emma shouted mentally to her platoon, diving herself for the small tunnel under the lip of the foxhole. "TacComp, sit rep!"

Emma's field of vision was immediately swarmed with requests for fire support as a huge wave of enemy forces began advancing across the fifty kilometer gap between the two sides.

"Goddess damn it," spat Emma, ducking instinctively as another massive explosion rocked the ridgeline. "We need to get out there. Chief?"

"I can coordinate the defense here," said Chief. "You do what you need to do, sir."

"Thanks," said Emma, clapping her warrant officer on his shoulder and readying herself. "See you around."

She launched herself forward, running down the ridge towards the company's vehicle hub. To her left and to her right, she could see bright blobs of color converging in the same direction she was running.

"Some break, eh Rene?" asked Emma as she slid to a halt in front of one of the many infantry fighting vehicles their battalion had available.

"For the love of the Goddess, I just came off the line," groused Rene, reaching a silk-gloved hand down and pulling Emma into the IFV. "Let's get this over with. We've got the right flank this time."

"Good, that means Varsha and Rebecca have center," said Emma, double checking her equipment as a squad of infantrymen clambered in. "We should be able to pin the squids against them."

"That's the hope," said Rene as a flight of Aer Magi streaked over head, drones staggered above and below for protection.

"Right then, everybody ready?" Emma asked. Everyone affirmed. "Let's go then."

With a lurch, the vehicle's oversized tires bit into the dirt and launched them forward, the IFV's turboshaft engine quickly accelerating them to one hundred kilometers and hour as they went flying over the ridge and landed heavily on the other side, dodging mortar and artillery as they went.

Emma climbed into the IFV's turret to peer through its scope, zooming in on the enemy formations as Rene made sure their accompanying infantrymen would work to complement their attack. All four had assault specializations, so it wasn't very difficult.

"They're doing the typical spearhead," Emma called down into the vehicle, sending the report back to regimental headquarters to update the line as she said it. "Leading edge is all tanks, we're going to need to jump early."

"Alright, you go from up top and I'll go from the side," said Rene, positioning herself by the IFV's gullwing doors.

"Got it," said Emma, opening the lock on the turret hatch and linking the scope's targeting to their TacComps. The IFV, computer controlled by an integrated virtual intelligence, was already beginning its opening salvo on targets of opportunity, sending a spray of 30mm rail accelerated rounds down range and forcing the formation to make small adjustments to avoid them. As the two sides closed at a combined rate of over two hundred kilometers an hour, the autocannon fire was just enough to make the next part feasible.

"Go!" shouted Emma, popping open her hatch and launching herself through the air towards an enemy tank. Below her, she caught sight of a white and crimson blur flying out of the door, sparks trailing behind her before a jet of flame streaked outwards and painted a tank red.

Emma's attack was a little less flashy. With a blip of light in one hand and a howling vortex sphere in the other, Emma dropped out of the sky at speed for her target. The sphere was launched almost immediately and exploded just ahead of the tank, sending the multi-dozen ton vehicle swerving vaguely but kicking a spray of dust. The blip of light turned into a long cavalry lance, which was quickly launched into the tank as it passed through the dust cloud.

Emma landed on the turret and jumped again, summoning her halberd this time as the tank ground to a halt behind her. Continuing her forward momentum, Emma aimed for the next tank in the formation. A small, white hot fireball punched into its turret as it turned to track Emma, and Emma finished it off by cleaving it open.

"Thanks, but I had it covered," said Emma telepathically, landing on the ground, and blasting a passing enemy IFV with a vortex sphere. The vehicle's hull was rent apart, spilling troops onto the ground as it careened into the ground and broke up.

"Sure you did," said Rene, a jet of flame heralding her destruction of another IFV. "Just like you had it covered the time with the hover troopers."

"That was entirely your fault," answered Emma, laying into the survivors with her halberd rapidly and efficiently. The squad was dead at her feet in seconds, just in time for her to summon a twenty foot long sarissa, plant the counterweight into the ground, and level the point into an IFV trying to run her over. "You were sleeping on the job."

"I got more torso shot through!" replied Rene indignantly. "You can't expect- oh shit."

Emma threw a sphere into the IFV and ran, heading straight for Rene's position, where streaks of UV light were visible on Emma's augmented vision.

"Shit, I got a can of Shock Troopers," said Rene, mental voice tight with stress as Emma watched her backpedal rapidly, dodging and weaving while fending off melee attacks with her rapier. "I need some help here, Emma."

"Already on it, gimme a light," answered Emma, gathering a pool of magic as she ran, jumping over an IFV as she did so and slamming a poleax into it as she passed.

"And.. now!" Rene shouted, pirouetting on the spot and forming a curtain of fire around her. Moments later, a swirling storm of wind encompassed the curtain and turned it into a flaming tornado, expanding outwards rapidly and consuming the Shock Troopers.

This was hardly enough to actually kill one of the heavily shielded and armored troops, but it was enough to disorient them and drop their shields to manageable levels. Emma's halberd bit into one from behind, cracking its shielding, before a magically-backed follow-up kick shattered it completely. Emma leaped out of the way, allowing Rene to shoot a fireball into the Trooper's torso and kill it.

The banter of earlier dropped completely as Emma landed beside Rene, halberd in hand as she provided the defense to Rene's offense. Point bursts of wind magic kicked up dense clouds of dirt that Cephalopod laser fire couldn't penetrate without losing too much energy, while her long pole arm allowed her to fend off any attempts to close to melee. Meanwhile, Rene continued sending out streams of flame that ate at shields until they failed and allowed her to incinerate the enemy.

"We need to keep pulling back," panted Emma as they slowly gave ground to the coordinated enemy fire. "It's a matter of time until these Troopers get bored and just have us blasted."

"No, our fireteam have us covered," said Rene.

Anti-tank missiles streaked in, low to the ground and unnoticed in the fog of war. Emma wrapped them in a maelstrom of wind as the missile detonated on the Shock Troopers, the velocity and magnitude of the strike blasting through the shielding and ripping apart armor plates.

"Merry Christmas, Lieutenants," called out the team leader over TeamCom.

"Thank you very much," said Emma as she and Rene hastily gulped in air and continued fighting, creating a pocket around them where enemy troops were veering around. The tanks were already in range of Varsha and Rebecca, who were putting their powers to terrifying effect, the first by blasting whole vehicles into oblivion and the other by turning them on each other in spectacular explosions.

"Hey, don't mention it," said the team leader. "Just- shit-"

A fireball blossomed along Varsha and Rebecca's position.

"Gooddess dammit," snarled the team leader. "Their air support is getting through!"

Emma clamped down on an urge to go back to help their friends. Rene's hand on her arm made it easier to refocus on the situation at hand.

"Fireteam Alfa, we're going to need some cover to recharge," said Emma, summoning another sarissa and spearing an IFV. Her TacComp informed her that her soul gem's charge was dipping below forty percent. "We're going to need it very soon, actually, can you make it to our position?"

"We can make it, give us twenty seconds," confirmed the team leader.

"Alright, Rene, we have twenty seconds to give these squids hell," said Emma, surveying the battlefield quickly. The right flank appeared to have held, with the other girls assigned to the flank performing as well, or better, as Emma and Rene. The center was being backed by masses of suppressive fire from the main line, and the cephalopod right flank, the left flank of the human positions, was b eing bombarded at leisure by Ayane's flight of Aer Magi and the artillery assigned to that sector.

"We could use some of their artillery," said Rene, nodding at the left flank as she readied herself for another burst of magic. "This is getting tiresome."

Emma glanced over at her friend. Rene was sweating, hands trembling as she fought to maintain her composure. A brief query to her TacComp told Emma that Rene's soul gem hovered at just above twenty six percent.

"One last burst, okay?" said Emma, clapping an encouraging hand on Rene's shoulder, before pulling together her own charge of magic. The enemy attack began to stall out, with IFVs coming to a halt and disgorging their troops to try and push the line up.

"Right," said Rene, gritting her teeth with a laugh. "I do all the heavy lifting in this relationship."

"I'll buy you a beer later," said Emma dryly. "Now!"

With a shout, both girls blasted their spells into the enemy troops, fire and wind swirling together into a white cone of destruction, incinerating and melting down anything without high density shielding. The firestorm dropped after a few seconds, leaving almost nothing behind except melted metal and charred corpses.

"And that's that," gasped Emma as their fireteam pulled up in the IFV.

"For now," replied Rene tiredly, holding a handful of grief cubes to her soul gem as she climbed into the IFV, Emma following behind her. "Merde, why can't the squids just let us rest properly before they attack?"

"No idea," said Emma, sinking to the floor of the IFV as it roared off, the enemy offensive effectively broken here. "Bloody hell, I want a teleporter."

"We can always dream," said Rene with a chuckle, before putting the spent grief cubes back into her battlepack. Her soul gem sparkled anew.

"A nap does sound good," said Emma, her own gem once again ready for battle. Her TacComp completed an update, and Emma read through it as she put her grief cubes away. "Good news. Judging from the sitrep, this offensive's stalled out pretty completely. The fireball we saw missed Varsha and Rebecca."

"That's good," said Rene with a sigh of relief. "Who was hit?"

"Some girls from 1st Battalion, I don't know them," said Emma, their IFV changing course back for their main line. "I hope the rest of the them are alright, that can't have been a good way to go."

"We'll find out later, for now, let's concentrate on our own friends," said Rene. "There's little enough time for that anyway."

(-)

Ayane was scrubbing out her soul gem when Rene and Emma got back to the line.

"How'd it go?" asked Emma, sitting down beside her. "You guys were pounding the left flank pretty hard today."

"Yeah, 2nd Battalion got the crap shelled out of them," said Ayane, shaking her head sadly. "I think they hit a clusterfuck of Shock Troopers, who ended up just calling in artillery. We had to reinforce, or the attack would have spilled into that side of the line."

Emma and Rene winced.

"How many have been lost?" asked Rene.

"At least one girl from every company," said Ayane, setting her grief cubes aside for later processing. "It's bad. They might temporarily reassign some of you to fill in the gaps."

"Yeah, that's.. that's depressing," said Emma. "We'll have to talk to them later, give them our condolences."

The three fell silent, reflecting on the deaths of their comrades. They didn't know them personally, but every mage lost was another member of their community gone.

"We should check on our men," said Emma eventually, standing up. "We'll see you around, Ayane."

"See you," said Ayane. Emma turned to go, but as she stepped forward, a blindingly white light blanked out her vision, before-

EMERGENCY TERMINATION

EXIT TO LOBBY

-Emma was blinking at a wood wall in a chair, utterly confused. A moment later, her brain recalibrated and she was confused for an entirely different reason.

"Ayane, what's going on?" she asked, standing up and looking to her left, where Ayane had just finished recalibrating. "Why did they kill the sim?"

"I have no idea," said Ayane, getting out of her chair beside Emma. "Looks like everyone's dropped out at the same time."

Emma nodded, the mental cacophony of telepathic chatter flying back and forth almost deafening. "Let's get out of here and figure out what's-."

With a gasp, Emma was sitting up in her VR chair, being lifted up by Samantha, who was shouting: "Grab your things and get outside! Go!"

Stumbling briefly from the captain's forceful shove, Emma quickly regained her balance and sprinted down the halls for her room, skidding around corners and dodging other trainees who were also running full tilt. Despite this, a glance out a window of the training facility made Emma skid to a halt.

There were transport shuttles lined up in the grass outside, girls already running to them and lining up to board. It was an absurd sight, one that only had happened in the sims so far, not in real life. Then Emma's TacComp shouted at her to get moving again, making her jerk and keep running, sliding into her room and beginning to pack her things.

"TacComp, what do I need and what do I leave?" she asked, pulling open the drawers.

"Leave everything except for your grief cubes and your weapon," said her TacComp. "Training Cohort 7A has been reassigned immediately to active service." "What?" asked Emma, coming completely to a stop as Ayane skidded through the door. "Repeat that."

"Training Cohort 7A has been reassigned immediately to active service," Emma's TacComp repeated dutifully.

"Ayane, is your TacComp-?"

"Being impossible? Yes," said Ayane with a grimace, shoving her grief cubes into a backpack and slinging her sidearm on around her waist. "This can't be right, we've only just started deep-dive simulations."

"Apologies, but this unit is incapable of being impossible," reassured Emma's TacComp as she pulled her sidearm on and checked that it was safed. "Please comply with orders as quickly as possible."

"I don't believe this," said Emma, dumping her grief cubes into a backpack and checking her soul gem for contamination. It was clean enough to worry about later. "What's going on?"

"We'll worry about the update later, let's get to our shuttle," said Ayane, pulling on her backpack. Emma nodded, and the two of them ran back out, through the hallways, and down to the lawn.

The shuttles were deafeningly loud, even more so than the anxious telepathic chatter. Emma and Ayane winced at the noise and followed their TacComp instructions to Shuttle 048, where they found Rene, Rebecca, and Varsha.

"Enjoying the concert?" asked Rene, shouting telepathically. Voice chat was utterly impossible, this close to the shuttles.

"Immensely," Emma replied, to the nervous laughter of the others. They filed in behind the other girls assigned to the same shuttle and buckled themselves in. Moments after everyone was seated and ready, the shuttle lifted off the ground with the thrum of anti-grav, then shuddered as the powerful turbofans roared and launched it for the horizon at speed.

The interior of the shuttle was silent. This was partly because technology allowed passengers to ride in silence and comfort, even when their transport was soon breaking the sound barrier thrice over. The other reason was because the girls had finally gotten to referencing their TacComp updates.

A massive cephalopod offensive had just smashed through the outer lines of resistance in the Nile Sector. The outer colonies were already lost, and the Military was reeling as it tried to reinforce the salient. There were massive casualties, there were not enough supplies, but, worst of all, there was no time. At the rate the cephalopods were progressing, they would be within blink drive range of Samsara in five days. It would take two for them to rendezvous at the mustering point with their assigned units, and another two for them to make it to Samsara.

Emma and Ayane sat quietly, neither saying a word as everyone around them digested this information. Two days of simulations corresponded to roughly two weeks of real world experience. The units that were being annihilated, right this second, had at least twice that. If older, wiser soldiers were falling like flies…

What would happen to them?


	5. Deep Breaths

_There__'__s never enough time to say goodbye. It__'__s the worst part about going to war. _

_-Colonel Elizabeta Adamson, 8th Battalion, 9th Magi Oplon, 2nd Army Group of the Mekong_

* * *

_I remember once, being on garrison near the frontier. I found a nice guy in town, and we were going pretty steady. A Sq-.,. A Squid raid came and blew up his apartment. And that was the end of that._

_-Major Qing Lin Anderson, C Company, 5th Battalion, 43rd Regiment, 9th Army Group of the Amazon_

* * *

"Looks like we've all been assigned 12th Magical Division, 2nd Army Group of the Nile," said Varsha, scrolling through the roster on her implants as they settled into the cramped quarters of the _HSS Salvation_, filled to the gills as it was with the members of their training cohort. "Me and Rebecca are headed to the 45th Regiment."

"That's to be expected," said Ayane with a nod. "You two work frightfully well together, especially on defense. I'm headed to the 48th, obviously. What about you two?" She looked at Emma and Rene.

"48th as well, 8th Battalion," said Emma. "It's the autocannon cavalry for us, it seems."

"I guess they think we'll do well there?" said Rene with a shrug. "It doesn't feel like we've performed any better in the cavalry than any other position."

"Well, the sim seemed to show us doing well," said Emma. "I mean, you don't think they'd just assign us to a random regiment, would they?"

"From the looks of it, the situation is pretty dire," said Varsha. "It feels like they would be inserting girls wherever possible, to bring any reserve units up to strength."

"Yeah, but what about the other units that are stationed along the frontier?" asked Ayane. "If the Squids are launching a massive offenseive, they have to have pulled units from the frontier to populate the attack."

"Well, I guess I could ask my mentor," said Emma. "Sarah's supposed to be on leave still, but maybe she got it canceled because of the attack?"

"It's possible," agreed Varsha. "If the attack is progressing like they say it is, then it would make a lot of sense to drop everyone out of their leaves unless they're on medical."

"You should call her later," said Rebecca. "We should have some fun with the others before we deploy! It'll be our last chance for some fun in a while."

"Rebecca has a point," said Rene. "The _Salvation_ is kinda cramped though, with everyone in it. _Salvation_,what do you have in your Rec Room?"

"I have several board games and decks of playing cards," said _Salvation_, her avatar forming beside the group. "There's also holographic billiards."

"Thank you, Salvation," said Rene with a nod. "What do you guys think, shall we go to the Rec Room and play something?"

"Also drinks!" said Rebecca. "We gotta have drinks."

"Well, my synthesizers are at your disposal, but don't drink too much if you turn off your intoxication filters," said _Salvation_, her voice tinted with a bit of worry. "You may be emancipated, but your body mass is still pretty low."

"That's true, but we'll be careful," reassured Emma as Rebecca hoped to her feet and pulled Varsha along with her. She turned to the others as she got to her feet. "Come on guys, you coming?"

"Eh, sure, why not?" asked Rene, standing from her bunk. "Ayane?"

"I'll come and chat, but I don't like alcohol," said Ayane.

"Not your thing?" asked Varsha. "I don't drink much myself, it's pretty bitter."

Ayane nodded. "Where'd you learn to drink, Varsha?"

"Oh, well, my colony didn't really care how old you were, as long as you had the cash for it," said Varsha. "I don't drink much, but I had a lot of friends older than me. It was just the cool thing to do, you know?"

"I.. not really."

"Eh, you're an Earther, I guess its expected."

"What about you, Rebecca?" asked Emma as the group began making its way towards the Rec room.

"Oh, I'm Chinese, you have no idea how crazy our liquor is," said Rebecca with a skip and a grin. "Rice Liquor is usually something like fifty-percent alcohol, but my parents always got the good stuff. It's like eighty-percent! Suuuuuuper fun."

"You're from a colony like Varsha then?" asked Emma.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm from the Yangtze Sector," said Rebecca with a nod. "My mom was mostly Chinese and my dad was mostly some mixture of Russian and German. Funnily enough, they were totally okay with teaching me how to drink. I guess they figured that if they introduced me early, I'd drink less?"

"Well did it work?"

"I guess it did," said Rebecca, pausing thoughtfully. "I've never really had that much, now that I think about it."

"It sounds like the colonies don't really care about the drinking age," said Rene. "Granted, I'm French, but my parents still wouldn't let me touch the stuff unless they watered it down a lot."

"That's not true, Archimedes II was totally obsessed with the drinking laws," said Varsha with a snort. "We just didn't care. There are plenty of ways to get a beer, at least, seeing as everything's based off capitalism."

"Same here," said Rebecca, skipping her way into the Rec Room. "I mean, Mom and dad had plenty of alcohol around the house anyway, but a lot of the older kids would go out drinking at someone's house. I went once, it was really boring. Just a bunch of loud music."

"I don't get it," said Ayane with a grimace. "What's the fun in getting your senses impaired? Besides, wouldn't your tox filters keep you from getting drunk?"

"It's the principal of the thing, you know?" said Rebecca, grinning as she pumped a fist. "Stick it to the man!"

Emma, Ayane, and Rene looked at her blankly while Varsha cheered as well.

"I just think Manhattans taste nice," said Emma, putting her hands up in surrender. "I… am going to get a drink now."

And so they got the small party under way. It was quickly decided that everyone would play billiards, eight-ball to be exact. Everyone took a moment to download the rules before beginning play, under the agreement that nobody would try and download strategies as well. The game quickly began sucking in other girls who got bored and wandered into the Rec Room, attracted by the laughter and telepathic conversation.

"Heh, it seems we got something going pretty well, didn't we?" asked Emma several hours later, sitting on a chair next to Ayane. She was slowly sipping her fifth Manhattan, intoxication filters set to 80% efficiency.

"It looks like everyone's having fun," agreed Ayane. She had finally relented and tried a gin and tonic. She still didn't like the bitterness, but a less-gin-more-tonic mixture was tolerable, at least. "Where are Varsha and Rebecca?"

"I think they went back to the room," said Emma.

"Oh."

"Well, everyone did say they'd be a couple."

"I guess."

"Do you think they're having drunk sex?"

"Emma!" Ayane scolded, flushing.

"Hee, I guess you're too much of a prude for that sort of thing," said Emma with a grin.

"I'm okay with that, it's just I, er," Ayane said. "It's just that they're our friends and it's awkward to think about that with them in mind."

"Oh realllly?" said Emma teasingly. "So I guess I shouldn't ask you if you think the 69 position is hot? Or-?"

Ayane jabbed Emma in the kidneys.

"Ow!" yelped Emma. "What was that for?"

"For being a stupid perv," said Ayane, face crimson as she drank from her cup.

"Meh, I guess I probably should put my tox filters back on," said Emma, rubbing her side. A moment later, she rubbed her eyes and sat up a little straighter. "There, filters back on. Happy?"

"Very," said Ayane. "Anyway, what do you think about your assignment?"

"I'm a little nervous, but I think I'll be okay," said Emma. "48th Regiment is supposed to do mostly support, so as long as we keep our heads in the game, it shouldn't be too much of a problem, right?"

"Well, that's the hope, I guess," said Ayane. "Varsha and Rebecca are supposed to be going to 45th though, do you think they'll be alright?"

"They're a good team, even if we keep giving them crap about being lovebirds," said Emma. "They just need to support each other when they're not both on duty. It'll be alright."

Ayane sighed, leaning back against her seat back and sliding down a bit. "We're not prepared for this."

"We're not, no," said Emma. "But we'll have to do the best with what we have, right? There's no such thing as a perfect game."

"I guess," said Ayane. She pulled her braid around and fiddled with it. "It's just that there's so many factors, and I don't know how all of them are going to play out."

"I know, I have the same problem," said Emma, turning her ring around and around on her finger. "Oh! We still haven't called Sarah. She can probably give us some information."

"That's a good idea, do you want to go find somewhere else to do it though?" asked Ayane, looking around the rather densely packed Rec Room. Frigates were only about one hundred meters long, on the outside, and the interior was much smaller. The Rec Room was consequently restricted to holding only about twenty people. The billiards game and multiple rounds of cards going on ate up that space, however, and girls were carefully edging around each other as they chatted and waited for their turn.

"Yeah, do you figure engineering, one of the fabrication rooms?"

"It's probably quiet enough," said Ayane, nodding. They got up and carefully made their way through the densely packed room towards the central corridor, trying not to knock anyone over and spill their drink.

The _Salvation_ was a fairly standard Frigate, with room enough, technically, to hold eight to ten extra passengers after the ten crew, but due to the need to transport large numbers of girls quickly, everyone was doubling up. Outside of the crowded Rec Room, the only sound that could be heard, was the distant thrumming of the FTL drive. The hallway was almost a straight shot to Engineering, but there was a lot less noise than expected. The various stations and rooms branched off from the central hallway, with the expected lack of decoration and embedded ceiling lighting. Red emergency lights ran down the sides and bottom of the hallway.

"Goddess, it is noisy in there," said Emma, rubbing at her head as she paused and leaned against the alloy wall. "I've got a headache."

"Are you sure you're not just hung over?" asked Ayane. "I'm perfectly fine."

"Ech, maybe I should just keep my filters on from now on," said Emma, grimacing as they began walking down the corridor towards Engineering. "Oh well. I guess the nanites will fix it sooner or later."

The two walked in silence the rest of the way, greeting the odd crew member or magical girl as they went. It wasn't a very long walk, in the end.

"Do you think voice call is probably enough?" asked Emma as the two of them settled down in front of a tool-bench.

"Well, I wouldn't want to bother her too much if she's busy," said Ayane.

"Alright, let me just patch you in and we're good to go."

The line rang twice before Sarah picked up.

"Hello?"

"Sarah, it's me and Ayane," thought Emma, wincing as she noted Sarah's rather harried tone. "We, ah, were wondering if you had time to talk?"

"Sure," said Sarah. "I can't be long though. I've been coordinating things with my platoon from long distance and there's a lot to get done."

"S-so you're going to Samsara?" asked Ayane. "We were wondering if other units were being shifted for the defense."

"Yes, most of the divisions on reserve have been moved back to active service, pending rearma- hold on," said Sarah. There was a long period of silence, before she continued. "You two are headed to Samsara for ground defense?"

"Yeah, we've been ordered to prepare for an extended ground campaign when we reach the fleet," said Emma. "The projections say that the Samsaran Home Fleet can't contest everything and will try to defend Samsara's population centers from orbital attack."

"What unit have you two been transferred to?"

"12th Division, from the Second Nile Army Group."

"Hm… the 12th is a little new," said Sarah. "You should be fine, but I haven't fought with them before."

"If they're from the Nile, then that means they were probably at the front when the squids attacked," said Ayane. "We're replacement officers, aren't we?"

"Yes… yes you are," said Sarah with a sigh. "The girls in your units will have lost friends, and the soldiers who survived will have lost their battle flags. You probably won't be accepted at first, there's too much grief and pain for that to happen. Just do your best, and give it time."

"Have you… have you lost-?" Emma trailed off.

Sarah paused. It was only a moment, but it felt longer, with a greater weight than her earlier breaks in the conversation. "I… I have, Emma. I've lost very close friends in battle before. I can't say that I treated their replacements well either. It's very difficult."

Emma and Ayane looked at each other. "How do you handle it?"

"Well, you know, we all have therapists we can speak to while on leave," said Sarah. "That helps a lot. There's a chaplain assigned to each Company as well, from the Cult of Hope. If you think it might help, you could speak to one of them as well."

"Did you?"

"I did, once, but I haven't found faith in the Goddess," said Sarah. "It's different from everyone. I would encourage you two to look into it and see if it helps at all."

"Why didn't you turn to religion?" asked Emma.

"I'm not sure it would be appropriate for me to say," said Sarah. "This sort of thing is for you to find out on your own. But, I'm sorry, I need to cut this short. What other questions did you two have?"

"Do you know anything else about what's going to happen?" asked Ayane. "We… we're.. we'd like to know more about what's going to happen. The updates only tell us what's already passed, after all."

"Hmm… I can't tell you that much, I'm not ranked highly enough to know all the details," said Sarah. "But, from what I've seen, the Cephalopods will probably attack in force. Blink drives allow you to move anywhere in three-dimensional space, so it'd be easiest for them to drop out of their teleport as nearly on top of Samsara as possible. You'll probably be dropped from orbit to intercept them, so dig in and give the regular army time to come up and reinforce. From there, it should just be a battle of attrition."

Emma and Ayane considered this.

"That seems… simple enough," said Emma eventually. "I think we can manage that."

"Good luck then," said Sarah. "I need to get back to work now. Stay sharp, alright girls?"

"We will," said Ayane.

The call ended.

Emma stood up and stretched. "Well, that was helpful."

Ayane nodded, getting up as well. "Tactically, it doesn't seem that difficult. If we just concentrate and trust in our commanders, it should turn out well, right?"

"I don't see any reason why not," said Emma. "I'm not going to say nothing can go wrong, but whatever happens, it shouldn't be beyond our capabilities."

"What are you going to do now?" asked Ayane as they paused in the doorway of Engineering.

"I think I'm going to go back to the room," said Emma. "It's still kinda noisy in the Rec Room and my head still kinda hurts."

"Well, hopefully, Varsha and Rebecca are just sleeping," said Ayane dryly. "I'll go back to the Rec Room and keep Rene company or something."

"I'll bet she's raking in the allocs at poker," said Emma, leading the walk back. "But you should try and meet some new people."

Ayane shrugged. "I'm not Rebecca, but I'll see what I can do. Send me a message when you wake up."

"What do you mean?"

"I figure you're probably going to take a nap," said Ayane.

"I… probably am, actually," said Emma, rubbing her head sheepishly. "Am I really that predictable?"

"Only with sleep," said Ayane, smiling as she pinged a mental image of Emma with cat ears and a tail towards Emma. "It's kinda adorable, actually. Emma the kitty, taking a cat-nap."

"Wha- No. I am not adorable," said Emma with a flat look as she immediately dismissed the image and stopped at the threshold of their room. "I am an ass-kicking squid-squashing magical girl, and don't you forget it."

"Sure," said Ayane, stifling a giggle as she continued on to the Rec Room. "See you around, Emma."

"See you," said Emma, waving before cautiously enquiring within with telepathy. After a few seconds without response, Emma carefully opened the door and peered in.

Apart from them now sharing a bed, it seemed that Rebecca and Varsha hadn't gotten up to anything.

"Phew," said Emma quietly, stepping in and shutting the door behind her, before crossing to her bunk and climbing in. "Hmm.. I should call Anna before going to sleep."

Anna picked up almost immediately. She sounded worried. "Emma! Where are you?"

"I'm on a ship," Emma replied mentally. "You sound worried, what's up?"

"You realize the attack is on the news?" said Anna. "This isn't something the Governance can glaze over, after all. What are you doing on the ship?"

"We're headed to a rendezvous point."

"You.. you're being deployed? But that's crazy, you left seven days ago!"

"Time dilation's pretty useful," said Emma. "I've been in time dilated sims for the last two days, and each sim lasted about a week. I'm not that green, Anna."

"Even so, two weeks isn't a lot of time."

"Calm down, you'd be surprised," said Emma. "You learn a lot when you're in actual combat, and that's only the last few full immersion VR sims. We did a couple of weeks of semi-immersive sims, er, subjective time, before that, so I've got two weeks of combat experience and a month of subjective training time. It's not that bad."

A moment of silence. Emma smiled as she imagined her sister, pacing back and forth in their kitchen just like she would when she wasn't sure what the most optimal way to solve the problem was.

"I… okay, okay, sorry," said Anna, calming down. "I'm sorry, it's just that the news broke about an hour ago, here on Earth, and I realized that there couldn't possibly be enough soldiers nearby to reinforce Samsara and then I started worrying and-."

"Anna, you're doing it again," said Emma patiently. "Sit down, okay? Stop pacing around the kitchen."

"I'm not pacing around the kitchen," said Anna, in a tone of voice that was very clearly that of someone who had just been pacing the kitchen madly.

"Sure you weren't," said Emma, rolling her eyes. "In any case, I did say I'd call. I'm sorry I couldn't do it sooner, I wasn't expecting training to be so hectic."

"Your recordings were nice though," said Anna. "I have them saved and sent copies to Ayumi. It's really cool how you can summon tornadoes now."

"Ah, well, it works better with someone like Rene," demurred Emma. "Slicey wind is all well and good, but fire solves all problems."

"Well, I'm glad that you can play football with your vortex spheres, if nothing else," said Anna. "I still can't believe you did that to that poor girl."

"Oh Elena was fine," said Emma, waving the memory aside. "It only threw her into the back of the net, nothing major."

"She was so angry though," said Anna. "It's just like you to do something like this."

"Hey, I apologized later! And besides, it's not like I didn't get punished for it. I had to fight our commander one-on-one for fifteen minutes!"

"But you probably enjoyed that."

"As if! Do you know how hard she punches?" Emma rubbed her stomach ruefully. "Last time I'll ever step out of line in the military…"

"Well it's good to see that they worked some discipline into you as well," said Anna. "Are you still napping all the time?"

"N-not AS much…"

"Emma."

"It's true though, we spend so much time in sims that they advise us to sleep during breaks."

"And DURING the sims?"

"Well…."

"…"

"I… well, okay, so maybe I take naps with the simulated enlisted men a lot more than is usually considered appropriate, but…."

"Emma, you really should make an effort to be more proper to your station," said Anna reprovingly. "You're a Lieutenant now, people look up to you!"

"Well, down to me," said Emma. "They're all, like, ten feet tall."

"Whatever. You get-."

"You're point, yeah, yeah," sighed Emma. Alright, I understand, I promise to take less naps."

"Good," said Anna approvingly.

"Anyway," said Emma, eager to move on to different topics. "What news on your side?"

"Nothing much from what I told you last," said Anna. "Ayumi's still looking for a mentor, and my studies are going well. Other than tha- oh, hey, hold on, Ayumi's calling, let me patch her in."

"Hey, Emma, how're you doing?" asked Ayumi later, barely restrained excitement audible in her voice.

"I'm doing alright, what're you up to?" asked Emma, curious.

"Well, Anna's been telling you about my search for a mentor, right?" began Ayumi. "I mean, there's plenty of people who are experts in logistics around here, it's just a question of finding someone you can work with, right? Well the guy I found, I talked to him just now, and you know what he said?"

"What did he say?"

"He said that I really knew my stuff and offered to get me an internship at Zeus Research Center!"

"Wow, that's amazing!" said Emma as Ayumi's excited squealing filled the chat. "Congratulations!"

"Bloody hell, an internship at Zeus?" said Anna incredulously. "That's so cool, and they're really stringent about this sort of thing too. You must have really impressed him."

"I guess," said Ayumi. "Oh man, you have no idea. I couldn't believe it at first, but I said yes, and a couple hours later I was sent this, take a look."

A request to receive a pictoral message binged on both Anna and Emma's fields of view. They accepted, obviously, and were treated to a mental image capture of an official Governance ID for access to Zeus Research Center, with Ayumi's school photo and other information listed underneath it. Scanners would be able to access it automatically, but it was still possible to take a look if you wanted, especially for moments like this.

"That's a real ID, holy crap," said Anna breathlessly. "Ayumi, I'm so happy for you!"

"Holy shit, Ayumi, you huge damn nerd," said Emma, shaking her head with a grin. "Goddess damn it, you actually got a job with a huge government corporation. Seriously, congratulations."

"Thanks guys," said Ayumi, her huge grin entirely evident in her voice. "I start next week, working in Procurement and Requisitions, after classes end."

"If you come across any secret projects, let us know, alright?" asked Emma. "And try to get on one. It'd be cool to say 'my friend is working on a secret project in Zeus Research'."

"Oh I'm sure they'll let a fourteen year old girl in on that sort of thing," said Ayumi sarcastically.

"Hey, if you see an Incubator, I'm sure that they'd be okay with it."

"That's a terrible reason to make a contract," said Anna with a laugh.

"Well…"

"Ayumi," Anna and Emma said at the same time.

"Ah, I know I know, jeez," said Ayumi, backpedaling rapidly. "Holy crap, the twins in stereo…."

"Anyway, Emma, what's this about a Goddess?" asked Anna. "You're not getting religious, are you? You don't seem the type."

"Oh, no, it's just some slang I picked up," said Emma. "You know about the Cult of Hope?"

"Yeah, the MSY Rep was talking about it the other day."

"It's just from that. You know how it is, when you hang out with a bunch of people who keep using the same slang."

"I guess," said Anna. "Do you think you'll be joining them though?"

"Not really," said Emma. "It's not on my scope, to be honest. Sarah says that I should talk to the chaplain when I get to the ship though."

"Well, it's probably for the best if she says so," said Anna. The group fell silent briefly.

"So, anyway, are you looking for a job as well, Anna?" asked Emma.

"Mm, maybe a little longer for me," said Anna thoughtfully. "I'm not sure where I want to work, to be honest, I'm just interested in the material."

"Well, you've still got a dozen years or so, right?"

"Exactly. If I get an opportunity like Ayumi's, I'll probably take it, but I think that there's no rush."

"Is there anything else that's been happening?" asked Emma. "Although, well, I guess it's only been a week for your guys, but subjectively, it's been a month for me. I've really missed you two."

"Oh jeez, Emma," said Ayumi, mood dampening considerably. "You're supposed to be the tomboy here, stop making me want to hug you."

"We haven't really had time to miss you properly yet," admitted Anna. "It still feels like you've gone off on a trip or something. It's… hard to imagine that you'll be in combat soon."

"Does the news look particularly bad from Earth?"

"It's definitely nothing good," said Ayumi. "Nova Terra's gone to partial war standing, even. I guess we won't know for sure until after you've already gone into battle."

"You… you guys, don't worry too much, okay?" said Emma. "I promised you I'd come back, remember? Besides, I've got a bunch of experienced girls who'll be watching my back. It's going to be fine."

"Hey, I have full confidence in you," said Ayumi half-teasingly. "Anna here's just being a worry-wort, I say."

"Seriously though, stay safe," said Anna. "I expect to see you again before Ayumi gets herself fired, okay?"

"Hey now!"

"Heh, I'll be sure to come for the party when she gets promoted," said Emma with a smile. She hadn't been expecting humor like that from Anna, but it was good to hear. "See you soon, I guess?"

"Yeah, I guess," said Anna. "Anything you wanted to add, Ayumi?"

"No, that's the only news emma hasn't heard already," said Ayumi. "See you soon Emma."

"Bye."

"Goodbye."

The call ended.


	6. First Impressions

_You don__'__t really know what to expect, the first time you meet your platoon. Is it the same as the sims? Is it different? You don__'__t know. You can__'__t ever know, because people are people, and they__'__re always different. _

_-Captain Elena Winterset, 9th Battalion, 5th Magi Oplon, 1st Army Group of the Yangtze_

* * *

_Most people never really understand the massive logistical issues the modern military unit has. Hell, even in the 21st Century, the supply chain for a single soldier could be immensely convoluted. It has not gotten better with age. If anything, it__'__s gotten worse. _

_-Surgeon General Frieda Steinbach, 5th Battalion, 7th Medical Division, 3rd Army Group of the Rhine_

* * *

The _Salvation_ reached the Third Fleet of the Nile a day later.

"Holy shit, that's a lot of ships," said Varsha. The wall of the Rec Room had turned artificially transparent, giving the girls an excellent view of the shuttles flying back and forth from the frigates to the transport cruisers of the Third Fleet. The over six hundred transport cruisers of the Third Fleet, carrying the sixteen divisions of Magical Girls and three times as many regular infantry of the Nile Sector's Second Army Group.

"They've pulled in the entire Group," said Ayane, scanning through the immense roster on her implants. "I… wow, they've even got a regiment of human SpecOps."

"What're we going to do with them?" asked Rene. "It's not like they can do much compared to the Black Heart."

"Oh, I'm sure we can think of something," said Rebecca. "They have personal shield generators, after all."

"In any case, we should get down to the airlock with our things," said Ayane. "Our shuttle is scheduled to dock in a few minutes."

Nobody moved for several seconds, still watching the ships of the fleet. Finally, Emma picked up her bag. "Ugh. Let's just get this over with."

The five girls filed out of the Rec Room, falling into step with each other as they shouldered their backpacks and joined the slowly growing line waiting for the shuttle.

"So, Varsha, Rebecca, how did you two sleep?" asked Emma.

"Very well, thank you!" chirped Rebecca. "The ship gets a little cold sometimes."

"Rebecca," growled Varsha.

"All I'm saying was that it was nice, and thank you for not throwing me out of the bed when we woke up."

"W-well, don't expect anything more like that from me."

"Oh, not when you're sober at least…"

"Rebecca!"

"Hey, hey, calm down, you can argue about your relationship status later," said Ayane, rolling her eyes. "Let's not make a scene right before deployment."

The shuttle arrived before Varsha could compose a suitable retort, and the girls filed into the shuttle for the trip to their transport cruiser. It was a short trip, the mood dampened considerably by the oncoming responsibility they all faced. Emma kept to herself for the time they were in transit, allowing the others to chatter and make themselves more comfortable with the situation however they wished. Varsha and Rebecca appeared to be having a fairly intense private discussion over telepathy, if their expressions were anything to go by, and Ayane was analyzing the latest updates with Rene. She tapped Ayane's arm and then at her own temple, asking to be included in the telepathic discussion. Ayane nodded, before continuing.

"So as I was saying, it seems like the amount of power we'll need to sustain operations is going to be a lot higher than we dealt with in the sims," said Ayane. "Most of what we've worked on so far is defensive, and there's not much running around."

"It looks like that is the case, yes," said Rene. "What I'm worried about is the supply issue. Do you think we'll have enough ammunition?"

"We can only bring as much as we can carry down to the planet as it is," said Ayane with the mental equivalent of a shrug. "As long as the fleet can maintain position over us, we should be okay."

"The predictions for enemy fleet size are immense though," said Rene.

"It's true, but there's a seventy-percent chance of the defensive grid taking care of thirty percent of that fleet. I think our chances are pretty good."

"I guess… I dunno, I feel like it might be best to make sure our supply lines are clear on the ground."

"That's not our problem to worry about. We'll have to rely on our commanders for that."

"Well, 12th Division isn't really all that old, or up to full strength."

"But it's been in combat before, so at least all of the girls have an idea of what they're doing."

"That's true…."

The shuttle docked with the airlock with a clunk, cutting short the discussion. Emma and Rene said their goodbyes, confident they'd meet the others on the ground, before stepping into the airlock. The heavy clunk of the shuttle undocking came almost immediately after the airlock sealed behind them.

"You nervous?" asked Emma as the hiss of the air pressure normalizing filled the room.

"Yes."

"Me too."

The hissing came to an end, and the far doors opened, letting them onto the Quartering Deck of the _HSS Damascus._

The _Damascus_ was a _Bursa_-class transport cruiser, designed to fit an entirely battalion of 1,024 soldiers inside its hull, then drop them from orbit to the ground in dropships the size of a small frigate. Each dropship could carry an entire platoon's worth of armored personnel carriers, as well as each soldier's equipment and spares besides. Emma and Rene would be deploying in the up-armored and up-armed infantry fighting vehicle version of the standard APC, the same one they'd been fighting in during the last sim.

"Well, I've been assigned to A Company," said Rene, nodding towards the bow of the ship. "2nd Platoon. I'll be headed that way."

"I'm in C Company, 3rd Platoon," said Emma. "I'm headed the opposite way. I, um… well. Good luck."

"Good luck," said Rene, extending her hand to shake. Emma grasped it and shook it firmly, looking Rene in the eye before turning away. They were as ready as they could be, they just needed to do the best they could.

The Quartering Deck ran nearly the length of the vessel and was several hundred meters long. For expedience, it was easiest for Emma to take the ship's transport tube system to get to her quarters. It was slightly disconcerting, falling up in relation to where she was standing and then getting whipped up to several dozen meters per second by virtue of air currents and artificial gravity, but the ride was short and Emma barely had time to be surprised before she was falling back onto her feet to land outside the quartering block for C Company. Space was at a premium when you had to fit 1,024 soldiers into a single vessel while servicing and docking sixteen dropships, so Emma would be bunking in close proximity to her platoon for the duration of the flight to Samsara. Each platoon had its own section of rooms in a single long hallway, with the rooms of the platoon commander and executive officer furthest within the ship and the platoon's common area at the opposite end. Each room held four soldiers, for eighteen rooms per platoon. Each company's halls opened to an adjacent common area, allowing for troops and magical girls from the entire company to mingle.

The transport tube came out right outside Emma's door. It made sense, since if the ship came under attack, it would be most expedient for everyone to get away from the hull and any breaches from enemy fire. Down the hall, Emma could see that much of the platoon was gathered in the common area, either chatting idly or linked into an entertainment system. She decided she would talk to them in a moment, but would first set her things down in her temporary quarters. The door opened for her automatically.

For a room dedicated to meeting an absolute minimum of what was necessary, the officer's quarters were surprisingly well set. Her bed was on the far wall, with a desk beside it for any administrative work she'd need to do. A chest of drawers for clothing and equipment sat opposite the desk, although of course it was entirely empty, given that she summoned all her equipment and had carried everything else with her. The walls and carpet were a soft tan, with the covers and sheets color coordinated to match with them. All in all, not bad. Emma wondered how much the enlisted rooms were like this.

Emma sighed and set her backpack down on top of the drawers. She'd only be in here for the next day and a half or so, needing the remaining time to kit up and get her platoon ready for combat. She took a moment to cleanse her gem of any corruption, and was surprised by a call from her Warrant Officer.

"Hello?" said Emma, holding a grief cube up to her gem.

"Lieutenant Sinclair, I'm Warrant Officer Ingrid Jones. I received a notice that you were on board, do you have a moment?"

Emma glanced at her chronometer. "I mean… I was planning on heading to the common area to meet the guys."

"I'd like to talk about some possible problems and nip them in the bud. I feel like it'd be best if we spoke before you did that."

"I... guess," said Emma, checking her soul gem again. It sparkled cleanly, but could do with another cleaning. "I mean, if you really think it's that important, but I'd like to keep it short. There's really not that much time until we need to leave, after all."

"Well, why don't you come to my room. It's across the hall."

"Alright, I'll see you in a bit."

"See you soon."

Emma ended the call and examined her soul gem. It glowed brightly, almost cheerfully, though she wasn't entirely sure how a gem could glow with any emotion. With a roll of her eyes, Emma returned it to her finger and walked across the hall. Ingrid's door opened automatically.

"Lieutenant," said Ingrid, standing from her chair and offering a salute. Heavily augmented for battle, she stood at two and a half meters tall. "Welcome to C Company, 3rd Platoon."

"It's a pleasure to be here," said Emma, returning the salute as the door closed behind her. She felt tiny in comparison to the giant looming over her. "I'd like to keep things less formal. If, er, you're okay with that. It just feels to… stiff."

"You can call me Chief, then, Emma," said Ingrid. "Please, have a seat."

"Alright," said Emma, taking the chair Ingrid had been occupying while the experienced soldier sat down on her bed. The Executive Officer's quarters were laid out identically to Emma's, with Ingrid's chest of drawers temporarily filled with her weaponry and set of armor plates, designed to bolt onto the nano-composite bodysuit Ingrid wore underneath her battle dress uniform. The threaded nubs where the plates attached could be seen at the wrists and ankles when Ingrid moved.

"I assume you've seen our last after-action report?" asked Ingrid, crossing one leg of the other and folding her hands atop of them.

Emma fidgeted. "Yeah, it's… well, it was pretty bad. You, er, lost your commanding officer, right?"

Ingrid nodded. "Lieutenant Madeline Adler. We had to pull back quickly, and she was part of the rearguard holding the LZ for our shuttle."

"Um, well, yes. If you need to talk about it…."

"You have enough problems as a magical girl," said Ingrid, shaking her head. "An old woman like me can find a therapist easily enough if she needs to, there's no need to make a younger generation bear my burdens."

"But it's, um, kind of my job to make sure you're okay for this, " said Emma. "I don't mind listening, if you need to just vent. Or something."

Ingrid blinked. "I appreciate the concern, Emma, but I've been at war for five years. I can deal with this."

"O-oh. Okay."

"But on the subject of problems, I wanted to decide on how much you will be taking command of this platoon," continued Ingrid. "As you know, there are plenty of girls who only work with other girls while their Warrant Officers take care of everything else. I believe that it would be best if you followed that example."

Emma bristled. "You're saying that you don't think I can lead this platoon."

"Quite frankly, Emma, you only have two weeks of combat experience. That's not enough to take over a platoon that just lost its commanding officer."

"It's still combat experience! You don't just forget everything after you get out of sim, Chief. I know what I'm doing."

"You've never managed a team for longer than a week at a time. How do the decisions you make early on effect things later?"

"I- that's- There's no reason to confront that! You don't second guess yourself, that's just stupid. Especially in combat."

"But out of combat?"

"What's the difference?! It's the same principle!"

Ingrid sighed. "And that's what I'm talking about. It's not the same principle, though it shares some of the same traits. Just because you can work with a squad to take down an armored assault doesn't mean that you're ready to command fifty plus soldiers."

"I- grlm…" Emma squashed her next argument. It wasn't like this was going to make a difference. Ingrid had a stubborn expression Emma had seen before. On her parents.

"You adults are all the same," Emma spat, standing up with a clatter of chair legs skidding along the floor. "Fine, if that's how it is, then I'll be your battle flag, but on one condition."

"What's that?" asked Ingrid placidly, legs still crossed as she looked at Emma with infuriating impassiveness.

"You're going to teach me what you're talking about, so I can actually do something in the future," said Emma, punctuating the order by jabbing a finger onto the Warrant Officer's desk. "And after that, I'm going to actually take a role in commanding this unit, because that's my job. Not to be the cute doll that everyone has to protect. I can and will do more than that."

"That's fine," said Ingrid, nodding. "I'll be sure to do that whenever we're off rotation."

"Then if that's all, I have some requisition orders to look over," said Emma, spinning and making her way to the door. "I'll send them to you for a double checking before approval."

"If you want to."

"Oh, I do," said Emma sarcastically, pinging the door open and stepping through to the hallway. "Wouldn't want to miss something important like an uncrossed "T", would I?"

The door slid shut with a quiet thunk.

* * *

Emma sniffed and glared angrily at the top of her desk, flicking away yet another requisition order and pulling up the next one. The desk simulated a three dimensional space for working in, allowing her to organize the information and see how her platoon was kitted out. Quite frankly, she didn't like the situation at all. They had enough fuel, but they were short on autocannon and rifle ammunition. On top of that was added her various platoon members' requests for specialized ammunition or weaponry, which had to go through her before they could be loaded on to the dropship. This made the logistics of the situation actually annoying rather than simply worrying, and gave Emma a headache.

A drop of water hit the top of the desk, and Emma scrubbed it away hurriedly. She was not going to cry over something this stupid. It wasn't like she was being pushed aside even though she'd trained hard for this.

With a snort, Emma returned to her requisition orders, squashing her anger and resentment and hurling it as far as she could mentally. She should probably apologize to Chief Jones later, actually. She was hardly being professional about this. It just… stung. A lot.

"New appointment, Company Preparedness Meeting," announced Emma's TacComp. Emma paused as it continued. "All platoon leaders are expected to have completed their requisition orders and have evaluated their troop preparedness levels before 0300. A virtual meeting will be held in VMR379 at 0315."

Emma checked her chronometer. It was 2342 hours right now, leaving her with just over three hours to complete all her work. A glance at the "pile" of requisition orders confirmed that she really didn't have that many more to do.

Ehh….

Emma quickly wiped her eyes once more, made sure that she didn't look like a crybaby on the first day, and went outside. The common area was still relatively empty, but a long range nomenclator scan told Emma that a good mix of the various subgroups in her platoon were gathered around the entertainment console.

"So… what's up?" asked Emma, leaning against the back of a couch.

"Oh, there's a football game up between New Athens' two league champions," answered Corporal Lewis. "The Eastern Hemisphere Champs are the- ohshitOFFICER ON DECK!"

Emma had to jump back as Corporal Lewis fairly leaped to attention, snapping everyone out of their trances and making them come to attention as well.

"At… ease," said Emma eventually as she took in the sight of a dozen people saluting her at once. "Um… I just wanted to know what you guys were up to. There's no need to be so formal."

"Corporal Lewis is rather jumpy," answered Sergeant Baker as he relaxed back into his seat beside Corporal Lewis. "Then again, he's on demolitions, so I'm not surprised."

"That happen a lot?" asked Emma as the room of grumbling soldiers returned to the game.

"Well, it's a question of blowing up an emplacement while being shot at, isn't it?" asked Sergeant Baker as Corporal Lewis slowly returned to normal, watching the game on his implants. "And, you know, lost most of his squad last engagement. Bit of a problem, that."

Emma winced. "Yeah… the, um, last squid attack was… well. Um. Ahem. So, football. Do you guys follow any other leagues?"

"Well, some of us are from Earth, so we keep up whenever we can with the Eurocup and stuff like that," said Sergeant Baker, biting his lip. "The colonials amongst us follow their colonial leagues, as you might expect. You into football?"

"Yeah, I was a footballer back when I was ten," said Emma, logging into the entertainment condole and setting the game into the top corner of her vision as she continued talking to Sergeant Baker. "We moved to Mitakihara though, and I didn't get a chance to play after that. Where are you from, er…"

"Chips is fine, sir."

"Call me Emma."

"Er, I… I'd rather not, if that's alright," said Chips, looking away. "It's…"

"I understand," sighed Emma. "Where are you from, Chips?"

"I'm from the colonies, Nova Terra's tangent systems specifically. We've been fortunate not to have many attacks. Some of the other guys aren't so lucky."

Emma glanced around, her nomenclator providing the places everyone was from. "Yeah… Arrenius was hit pretty hard. Is Sergeant Han doing alright?"

"She's… doing okay, I suppose," said Chips, glancing at the Chinese woman sitting alone to their right. "I… I wouldn't talk to her about it. Frankly, sir-."

"I know, I know," said Emma, scowling and resting her chin on her hand with a sigh. "Too new and everything. I'm surprised you're talking to me."

"I didn't know Lieutenant Adler that well, to be honest," said Chips. "Not as well as the others, at least."

"You're relatively new then?"

"I transferred in a couple of weeks ago," explained Chips, "I'm a fortification specialization, so I was in the back a lot. Only ever saw Lieutenant Adler from afar, but we had a few conversations. I was sad to see her go."

"Sergeant Han knew her well, then," said Emma. "My nomenclator says that she's on the command team."

Chips nodded. "Unless you change her assignment."

"No, I'm not going to mess with the organization a day before deployment," said Emma, grimacing. "It seems like I should talk to her."

"I wouldn't recommend it," said Chips. "She's seeing a therapist at the moment, but, well…"

"Yeah, I understand," said Emma. "I'll go talk to the others then."

Emma continued her rounds, chatting with whoever was willing to talk to her. It seemed that, like Chips, only the newest members of the platoon were interested in conversation. The others weren't disrespectful about it, they simply withdrew as soon as they could. Trying to talk to them was a little like trying to get that one very frustrating instructor to explain what he meant in more detail: the more you probed with questions, the more it seemed like they were deliberately avoiding the subject. A cat wandered through at some point.

By the time she was finished, Emma really just wanted to flop back onto her bed and take a nap. Instead, she dropped into an empty chair, squishy and low backed, with a sigh and rubbed her eyes. The same cat from earlier walked over and hopped into her lap. Absently, she scratched the cat behind the ears as she watched New Athens East begin a spirited semi-aerial offensive, bouncing the ball back and forth across friendly heads and feet.

"Mmmm…." purred a voice in Emma's head as the cat butted its head against her hand. "Oh, you're really good at this, new girl. Not bad."

Emma started as she realized that the voice came from the cat. She pinged it with her nomenclator. "Oh, um, hello Alanis."

"Hello," said the magical girl as she curled up in Emma's lap and closed her eyes. "Keep it up, new girl. This is niiiiiice."

"Don't you find this degrading at all?" asked Emma a moment later as she continued the gentle scratching. "You're, well, you're five years older than me and a combat leader to boot."

"Eh. Would you ever turn down a back rub?"

"Well… no."

"Exactly."

"But… I'm treating you like a pet."

"That's because I am a pet, for the moment."

"But you're a magical girl?"

"Don't think about it so much, just keep scratching my ears," said Alanis, glancing up at Emma to roll her eyes before returning to her previous posture. "Where're you from, new girl?"

"My name is Emma, and I'm from Earth," said Emma. "What about you?"

"New Volgograd," said Alanis. "To the right a bit- yeaahhhh…"

"…I'm starting to suspect that you're really only here so I can scratch your ears," said Emma.

"Pretty much," said Alanis unabashedly. "Sergeant Phan does a good job too, but I needed to make the rounds."

"Oh, shit, I still need to finish my requisitions and teamcomp analysis," said Emma, glancing at her chronometer and realizing she only had an hour to do both. "Um. Should I just-?"

"I got this," sighed Alanis, standing up and leaping off of Emma's lap. She glowed a wispy blue for a moment before landing in a crouch, much more human than before.

"Ahh, it's too bad you can't stay around," said Alanis, stretching and yawning mightily to reveal pointed canines. Emma was more focused on the fact that Alanis had retained her tail and cat ears to notice this. "Well, whatever, I guess I'll see you around, new girl."

Emma blinked as Alanis walked off, rolling her shoulders.

Back in her room, Emma dropped into her chair with a groan and worked her way through her stack of work as quickly as she could, making sure she didn't miss anything important and sending an order for a cup of coffee to the synthesizer. A small delivery drone left it beside her elbow, and Emma quickly gulped a few mouthfuls before finishing off the last of her requisitions. Still wiping the dregs from her lips, Emma lay down on her bed to log into the virtual meeting space. It took a moment as her TacComp established a connection, before her vision cut to black.

Emma's vision returned as she appeared in the virtual conference room set up by her company commander, Fatima Kosey. She, her executive officer, and the other platoon leaders were already seated. The virtual conference room held a circular table ringed by high backed leather chairs, one of which Emma was already seated in. A few scattered potted plants, for visual flavor, were the only other decorations.

"Ah, there she is," said Fatima. "Finishing your requisitions?"

"Um, yeah," said Emma, blushing slightly and rubbing the back of her neck. "I finished all of them just now."

"Hmm. Get started a little earlier next time, yeah?" said Fatima, slightly amused. "Anyway, let's get introductions around before we get started. I'm Fatima and my XO is Mei Ling." The Chinese girl seated next to Fatima inclined her head with a flat expression. "I'll let the platoon leaders introduce themselves then."

"Well, we've met already," said Alanis, nodding in Emma's direction. Her ears bobbed as she continued. "New girl's pretty good with the ear scratching. I like her."

"Of course that's all you needed to like someone," said the next girl, of mixed ethnicity and hair dyed a deep blue. "Emily Cross, Water Elemental, 2nd Platoon. Alanis is in charge of 1st, if you didn't know already."

"And I'm Qing Duo Yu, 4th Platoon leader," said the last girl, also Chinese with a streak of lime green dyed into her hair. "I'm a barrier generator."

Emma nodded politely to each of them in turn as she took the remaining empty seat. "My name is Emma Sinclair, Wind Elemental. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Now that we've got that out of the way, let's get to business," said Fatima, folding her deep brown hands in front of her mouth and nodding at the table. A map of the galaxy popped up, displaying the cephalopod advances in near-real-time.

"What business, exactly?" asked Emily, head propped on one hand with an infinitely bored expression on her face. "It's not like our TacComps don't give us updates on this sort of thing."

"Sure, sure. I guess you already know about the projected numbers for the squid offensive. What are they again, can you remind me?"

"….um," said Emily awkwardly, realizing that she hadn't checked the updates in a while.

"Exactly," said Fatima pointedly. "And so, as I said, on to business.

As you know, the situation is rather poor. As of this time, the projected cephalopod arrival is almost on the dot with our arrival in the system. You've all been appraised of our supply situation and, fortunately, I have good news. 12th Division is scheduled to secure the manufacturing centers in the Kolasi Basin, so you should be adequately supplied after landing. This has been forwarded to your platoons, so there's nothing that should be a problem. 12th Division will need to hold the line and provide for escort duty until the caravans are handed off to 7th Cavalry for the rest of the trip. The exact routes will be plotted based on enemy troop movements, so keep flexible and prepare for a lot of boredom. If we're lucky, the squids will be forced to dig in across the initial front and we'll hit a protracted siege almost immediately."

"Isn't standard doctrine to try and force a siege?" asked Emma.

"Think of the larger picture," said Fatima, shaking her head. "The squids are going for a massive offensive. Given the numbers we're looking at, we may not be able to force a siege early."

"If we manage to get a siege at all, that is," added Alanis. "No plan survives first contact with the enemy, new girl, so don't count on it."

Fatima nodded. "It's the best case scenario, that's true, and what do we all know about best case scenarios?"

"They never happen without half the company dead anyway," answered everyone but Emma.

"Exactly, so let's not get our hopes up too high," said Fatima. "Now then, status updates. Alanis?"

"First platoon is ready," said Alanis confidently, her ears twitching upright for emphasis. "Our dropship is already provisioned, the IFVs are fueled and bombed up, and the men are confident."

"Good. Second Platoon?"

"We don't have enough men," said Emily with a sigh. "We'll do the best we can with what we have, but Second Platoon is only at 55% strength. The plus side is that everyone's completely stocked on ammo, but that's not much of a silver lining, all things considered."

"I'll try to keep Second Platoon out of too much action," reassured Fatima. "Third Platoon?"

"Well, the men don't want to talk to me much," said Emma. "It's understandable, but it makes things more difficult. I'm certain that 3rd Platoon will do its duty, but I can't guarantee anything more than that. As to our supply situation, we're about as well equipped as we can get without cannabalizing stocks from other platoons, and everything's supposed to be loaded up by 0500."

"Yes, let's not make C Company unpopular in the regiment," said Fatima dryly. "As well as can be expected, I suppose. 4th Platoon?"

"The situation is not much different from 3rd Platoon," said Qing Duo. "My platoon's morale is as high as you can get in situations like this, but we will do our duty."

"Good, then it sounds like we're about as prepared as we can be," said Fatima. "Mei Ling, anything to add?"

"No," said Mei Ling. "Despite being at only 75% strength, C Company appears to have sufficient numbers and morale to complete its mission and defend the Kolasi Basin. I have been able to secure the provisions for the company, so there are no problems there. We won't know more until the drop."

"Alright, then let's get started on combat exercises," said Fatima, standing up and changing sims. The simulated furniture flicked and vanished, leaving the group standing in a fifty meter by fifty meter, flat, metallic arena. Emma blinked, and Fatima had transformed, spinning a sledgehammer in one hand and adjusting the hem of her many-zippered leather jacket with the other. She unzipped one of the pockets and pulled out a lollipop. To Emma's left, Qing Duo had transformed into a hugely long sleeved gown of greens and light blues, a large and ornately bordered plate glass mirror standing up from magic on the ground in front of her. Emily now had a large water gourd slung across her back with a sash and an ankle-length jacket over a pair of black pants and shirt. Analis was now simply a huge tiger, and Mei Ling was wearing some sort of asiatic monk's outfit.

"Emma, you're with me and Mei Ling," said Fatima, gesturing with her sledgehammer for Emma to transform. "Rules are simple: three on three deathmatch. Team with the highest kill-to-death ratio wins. The sim won't be that high fidelity, but it'll work well enough for now."

Hurriedly, Emma summoned her soul gem and flashed into her outfit, summoning a halberd as she did so and quickly jogging over, "Um, why are we-?"

"Well, since you're new, we need to integrate you into the team's power dynamic," said Fatima, pulling more sledgehammers down from the air as Analis, Qing Duo, and Emily formed a triangle, with Qing Duo leading behind a giant plate-glass mirror. "We don't have the time, really, to teach you about platoon level combat, but we need to make sure that we can all work together as a team. We'll start with you piggy-backing on me and Mei Ling, then rotate you around."

"Oh, o- wha, hey, I can hold my own!" said Emma indignantly.

"We'll see about that," said Mei Ling blandly, body crackling with electricity as she and Fatima stepped forward. "Match start in three, two, one."

Emma was immediately ordered to support with her vortex spheres. Growling in distaste, Emma strafed left, launching spheres up and over the heads of her teammates in a typical blanketing attack. Green light lit up the enemy position, obscuring Emma's vision briefly. She paused to clear her vision, and nearly had her head taken off by a flying mirror. Qing Duo had summoned a dome of her mirrors, then waited until Emma had paused to launch all of them at high velocity.

Coming out of the instinctual roll, Emma was immediately beset on all sides by whips and streamers of water. As she tried to parry, they snatched her halberd out of her hands. As she tried to block, they flowed around and punched her square in the chest anyway. Emma was driven back, stumbling over herself, to land heavily on her rear beside Mei Ling.

"Ah, I see you are doing well," said Mei Ling in her furiously bland voice as she deflected a mirror with a lightning-charged machete. "Here, let me give you some help anyway. Fatima!"

A swirl of sledgehammers flew around them, soon charged with a horrendous amount of electricity, before Mei Ling set the charges flying into Emily's searching water whips. The water mage, barely had time to launch her water away from her before they struck, saved only by her combat instincts. A brutal sledgehammer blow to the sternum knocked her out almost immediately after.

"Aim to knock your enemy off balance, not just for the kill," advised Mei Ling as she pulled Emma to her feet and ran, avoiding a series of summoned mirrors and the Qing Duo reflections that leaped out to crush them under yet more mirrors. "For example, I will now attempt to electrocute Qing Duo's reflections. If I succeed, you take the opportunity to chop all their heads off."

"R-right," said Emma, pulling up a halberd and readying herself. Mei Ling suddenly stopped and pivoted. The reflected images dropped out of the mirrors now scattered around the small field, poised to summon yet more mirrors to reflect yet more images. It was a recipe for massive over kill, if allowed to continue. Mei Ling simply took a deep breath, then pushed outwards with her hands.

A wave of electricity jumped outwards, causing the reflections to scatter. Those who were too slow were immediately paralyzed and quickly executed by Emma, a burst of light all that remained of their false existence.

Suddenly, Emma realized that one of the reflections was holding much farther back than the others. It was not a great feat of logic to conclude that this was the original. Take her out and the reflections go with her.

"I've got Qing Duo in my sights," Emma called out to Mei Ling telepathically. "I think I can make it."

"Fatima?"

"It's probably a terrible idea," said Fatima, her telepathy carrying a distinct air of resignation. "Go for it, we'll try and pull your ass out of trouble if needed."

"That's… comforting," said Emma, pausing to parry a mirror and duck under the reflection's kick.

"What, losing your confidence?"

"No, no, I got this. Here I go."

Emma gathered her magic and pushed outwards. A swirling pillar of cutting wind blew through the reflections, scattering them in flashes of light and homing in on the original. Qing Duo pulled another mirror out and ducked behind it, the wind scattering against it harmlessly. Emma was on top of her almost instantly.

She immediately regretted it.

Qing Duo's reflections didn't respond as quickly or as violently as Qing Duo herself did. Emma's first blow was redirected into the ground, before the more experienced magical girl thrust her palm inside Emma's guard and materialized a mirror. Emma barely escaped getting her sternum crushed by twisting to the side, but a roundhouse kick to the back of her knees dropped her to the ground. She rolled, trying to avoid the curb stomp that followed, but looked up to see a mirror over her head and already whistling downwards.

The sim cut her senses before the edge of the mirror shattered her neck.


	7. Due Diligence

_Waiting is something that__'__s more intrinsic to warfare than death is. You__'__d think that fighting a war would involve more actual fighting, but I__'__ve spent more time sitting on my ass waiting for orders than I have actually fighting. _

_-Colonel Mariposa Sponder, 7th Magi Oplon Regiment, 7th Magical Division, 1st Army Group of the Yangtze_

* * *

_It is also because of this that we [the Cult of Hope] do not emphasize holy books, nor hymns, nor dull mantras to be memorized and chanted. All of those things are the mere trappings of artifice, and unnecessary. We pay for our entrance into Heaven with the lives we lead, not our worship._

_-Kyouko Sakura, Sister of the Cult of Hope, Member of the Mitakihara Four_

* * *

It turned out that, fortunately, Emma had been enough of a distraction for Mei Ling to zap Qing Duo from a distance, allowing the remaining two members of Emma's team to disassemble Alanis easily. What followed afterwards was a grueling dissection of Emma's performance, assisted with frame-by-frame analysis of what the other girls had seen. Emma had never felt so very small before in her life, and the added humiliation of being so easily defeated did not help matters.

The point, however, was for Emma to find a place in the group dynamic.

"Well, all things considered, that could have been a lot worse," said Emily as she pulled her water back into her gourd and dismissed her transformation. "What do you think, Qing?"

"I think it should work out," said Qing Duo, lifting her arms out then pulling them back in to make the sleeves of her gown billow as she sighed thoughtfully. "She fights hard and loudly, which will give us space to make our kills."

"That's one way of putting it," said Emily, snorting. "Another way would be to say-."

"Emily," said Fatima. "Is there anything else you need to take care of?"

"…Yes. I'll get going then. See you guys around."

"I need to leave as well," said Qing Duo, dropping her transformation as Emily logged out. "Goodbye."

"You did well today," said Fatima, turning to Emma as the others made their goodbyes and left. "You alright?"

Emma was studiously unamused with Emily, but took a deep breath and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Yeah, I'll be fine."

"Good, then a few things before you deploy," said Fatima. "First, make a will."

"Ah, right," said Emma, blinking once before nodding. "What would you suggest?"

"The military and the MSY have templates you can use," said Fatima. "Here, I prefer this one-." Emma's implants blipped the filename into the corner of her vision as Fatima continued "-because it's a pretty easy little form."

"Ah, okay," said Emma, glancing over the text before storing it away in her memory. "The second thing?"

"Make sure to call your family one more time," said Fatima. "I took a look at your personnel file. It sounds like you and Anna are pretty close, so don't fuck it up."

"Right," said Emma with a nod. "I'll, uh, see you at deployment time then?"

"See you," said Fatima. She waved as she logged out, taking the simulation along with it.

Emma was now faced with several hours to kill. She logged out, returning to her body on her bed, and contemplated her options.

By habit, she pulled the template up and began to read through it. As Fatima had said, it was a very straight-forward document. It started by asking her to give her name, state that she was of sound mind, and other things, worded in ceremonial language, that should have gone unsaid but were made explicit regardless. From there it moved to her estate and how it was going to be divided, then the executor of all of that.

Well that was going to be Anna, obviously, and Emma filled the blank in almost idly. She also wrote her name into the top and confirmed that yes, she was, in fact, sane.

Her estate though, that was a little tricky. There was the huge amount of allocs that she would probably accrue, at least comparatively, but if she decided to split it evenly between her friends that would probably work. So that meant, what, sixteen and a bit percent to each person?

But… should she include her parents in this? It was true that she didn't have the best relationship with them, but at the same time it seemed cruel to just cut them out of her will completely. If she died, she didn't want to leave behind something the idea that she actually, really, had no shits to give about the people who raised her.

Emma swallowed, shivering. Jeez, dying. That was a scary thought. It wasn't really a thing that she'd thought about before, and even now it seemed abstract and far away. The footballer in her enthusiastically disregarded death as less important than achieving whatever she could, but the ever hated logistics officer calmly retorted that death was a cold fact that had to be faced.

For that matter, she thought as she put the will away for now, how did a magical girl face death? For a normal human, this wasn't anything particularly difficult: dying meant that your body stopped working. But that wasn't necessarily true. Emma's mental state had a close link to the state of her soul gem, and it was extremely possible for Emma to die from pure angst and despair.

That, she decided, had to be one of the stupidest ways to die, ever. She understood why people would do that, of course, but she resolved to stay positive and not let her soul gem darken from despair.

Speaking of which, what was it with that Goddess? Sarah had mentioned it during the call from the _Salvation_, and Emma knew that a lot of girls had faith in her, but what_ was_ the Goddess, exactly? And how did she save girls from despair, whatever that meant?

Well, she had time to kill.

"TacComp, is the Chaplain available?" Emma asked.

"The chaplain is unavailable for full consciousness conferencing," answered the TacComp. "Would you like to make a Chat Room with a portion of her consciousness? Please be advised that you may not be able to achieve full fidelity."

Emma shrugged. "Yes, make the connection."

"Complying…"

Emma fiddled with her soul gem, as she waited. She'd looked at it several times by now, sitting idly and waiting for a sim or whatever. Whenever it was fully purified, it always had the same sort of glitter surrounding its glow. It was kind of interesting, watching the bits of light orbiting around the glowing center within the crystal.

"Connection successful," announced Emma's TacComp. "Logging you in."

Emma fused the gem back into its ring form just before her vision cut out, then returned within the confines of a brick walled chapel. In the center was an altar and accompanying podium, standing beneath a wide skylight that cast all in a wash of white light. The walls and floor were panelled over with dark wood. The same wood was used to construct the pews. High windows let in a light breeze, making strands of crystal, tied to the skylight and reaching to the ground, twinkle and clink against each in a facsimile of a melody. The sound of quiet, meditative chanting echoed in from somewhere off in the distance.

"Hello," said a small girl to Emma's right, dressed in an aggressive looking costume that was offset by the white shawl wrapped around her shoulders. "My name is Abigail. How can I help you?"

"Ah, hi," said Emma, slightly disconcerted by needing to look down at the significantly older magical girl. "I had a few questions about the cult?"

"Well, that's what I'm here for," said Abigail with a smile. "Please, have a seat."

"Thanks," said Emma, sitting down in one of the pews. Abigail perched next to her on the back of a pew, resting her feet on Emma's pew. "You're, um, not really what I expected."

"You mean the costume?" asked Abigail, gesturing at herself with a wry smile. "Everyone says that. I was a headstrong and aggressive girl back in my day, but it's been a long time since this costume has matched my personality."

"Oh. Did that happen after you became a chaplain?"

"Before, actually," said Abigail. "You see, I was in the 8th Magi Oplon Regiment."

Emma winced. The Magi Oplon were where combat specialists got reassigned. They typically took the most dangerous missions, since they were more likely to survive them. This did nothing to reduce the number of casualties or the horrors they saw. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be, at the time I enjoyed it," admitted Abigail. "I have a mild case of battlelust, so it was always fun ripping off heads and using them to bash squids in." She smiled at the memories. "But that's neither here nor there. Did you have any specific questions?"

"Well, I guess the first question would be what IS, the Goddess, exactly?" said Emma. "Other than the obvious part from the news. Like, it's all well and good to say that there's a thing here, but what exactly is that thing?"

"Well, that's a bit complicated," said Abigail, scratching her nose. "You know the other basics, I'm sure?"

"That the Goddess is supposed to watch over us all and save us from despair, right?"

"That's it exactly," said Abigail. "So, with that as the basis, there's a few theories."

"Theories?" asked Emma, raising an eyebrow.

"Do keep in mind that we're rather young for a religion," said Abigail with a smile. "It's difficult to answer questions concretely when you've only been around for a few years."

"I, well, I guess that's fair," conceded Emma. "But anyway….?"

"Right, so the first major theory is that the Goddess is an incorporeal hyper dimensional being that can jump between dimensions to pop into space and save us from despair by taking it upon herself and storing it or something. It's a little crazy, but it does work. Another is that She's a spiritual entity that lives upon a higher plane of existence, and that she gathers our souls to this plane when we die so that we may live in everlasting peace for our sacrifice. That comes from the girls with vaguely Judeo-Christian backgrounds, obviously, and makes a good deal of sense on it own. The last major theory is that the Goddess isn't a godly being at all, but rather was compelled into the service of a still higher God, and that it watches over us all for good and for ill. If you can't tell, that's blatantly an integration of the Cult of Hope into Christianity, and works for what it is, but isn't all that widely accepted."

"That all sounds so…" began Emma, searching for the correct term. "…convenient."

Abigail laughed. "I thought so too, back when I first heard of the Cult. It's pretty dumb, from a rational standpoint. I mean, the first question you ask is why would anyone care?"

"Well, yeah," agreed Emma. "I mean, I'm no Mami Tomoe, right?"

Abigail nodded vigorously. "And why despair? Why not save us all the trouble and blow the squids back to wherever they come from?"

Emma snapped her fingers. "Exactly. And how do you save someone from despair anyway? Like, do you show up when they're about to die and sing lullabies in their ear or something?"

"Actually, that does work," said Abigail. "Standard procedure with some of the medical staff. The Mental Health Division has a lot of girls who have song-spell powers."

"Seriously."

"Yeah."

"That is… wow. I.. I don't know what to say."

"I thought it was pretty lame, myself," said Abigail with a shrug. "Like, wow, songs? Really? What're you going to do, serenade the squids to death?"

Emma laughed. "But, uh, if you don't mind me asking, if you had all these questions, what made you believe in the Goddess? It sounds like a lot of those haven't really been answered, even.

"A friend died," said Abigail. "We were fighting near the beginning of the war. None of us really knew what we were doing, and she took a sniper round through the gut. Was still alive, obviously. A single sniper can't take one of us out just like that. But her gem was already low, and trying to regenerate the wound took her to zero. I was trying to keep her gem pure when it went critical and started to crack."

Abigail paused, taking a deep breath. Emma noticed that the girl's eyes were shining with unshed tears.

"I don't want to-" Emma began, but Abigail cut her off.

"No, it's fine," said Abigail, wiping her eyes. "Haah. Anyway. My friend's gem was going critical and there was nothing I could do to stop it, so I just hugged her close. We were both crying, obviously, but just before she died, my friend suddenly stopped. I looked up, hoping for some sort of crazy miracle, and she was staring off over my head. There was this look of wonderment and joy on her face, and she died smiling. I couldn't get that out of my mind, so I went off to our chaplain. The rest is history."

Emma shut her mouth with a small click. "I… wow. I mean, there are a lot of things that could make you think you saw the Goddess, but that's… really impressive."

"Well, in terms of Her glory, yeah, it's pretty blatant," said Abigail. "You'd think that a Goddess that's incorporeal and stuff wouldn't be able to effect the world that concretely, but apparently it's totally a thing."

Emma swallowed. "I'm… well, I was pretty skeptical at first, but now I don't really know," she said. "Can I come around some other time, to ask you some more questions?"

"Absolutely, it's what I'm here for," said Abigail. "I'm also technically part of the MHD, so I've got some basic counseling skills if you need it as well. Feel free to ask me about anything, and if nothing else I can send you to someone who can help you out some more."

"Alright, thanks," said Emma, smiling as she stood and shook Abigail's hand. "For now, I guess, I'm out of questions. I'll see you around, I guess?"

"See you around, Emma Sinclair," said Abigail. She bowed at the waist, as Emma logged out, and intoned: "May the Goddess watch over the path that you walk."

Emma blinked as she looked up at the ceiling of her quarters. She had expected many things from the Cult of Hope, but actual, tangible evidence of their Goddess had not been one of them. There were a lot of things they taught you about the old religions, Roman Catholicism, Buddhism, and the like, but the one constant was that they never really could show you exactly who or what you were worshipping, only asking you to "have faith" in the existence of the deity in question.

"This Cult might actually be on to something," Emma said to herself, manifesting her soul gem and holding it up. It was certainly a comforting thought, that the bright glow of her gem would always be saved by some being beyond this existence.

Emma took a deep breath and reformed her soul gem as a ring. Maybe it was comforting, but Emma wasn't going to put her faith into a story and some hopeful thoughts. Playing football, Emma had always relied on training and being one step ahead of her opponents, and that wasn't going to change now.

Emma called Anna as she sat up and swung her legs down off the bed to the floor, sitting upright on the edge of the bed and pulling up her incomplete will. It took a moment for Anna to pick up.

"Hi Emma! What's up? How're you doing?"

"Hey Anna," said Emma, smiling at her sister. The video call projected the head and shoulders of the participants at arm's length from their counterpart. "I'm doing alright, thanks. How about you?"

"Same as usual," said Anna with a shrug. "There's a pretty dumb team project we've been assigned, and I'm trying to convince my teammates that we need to get started on it now."

"Oh yeah? What about Ayumi?"

"She's not in the same class, she's working on something else," said Anna. "It's a bit unfortunate, really, but I suppose it's for the best. Learning how to deal with people and all that, right?"

"Well, you've done this sort of thing before," said Emma. "Remember, a couple of months ago?"

"Oh, right," said Anna, face going flat. "THAT thing. Didn't we decide never to speak of it again?"

"Well you keep bringing up my thing with the football."

"Fine, fine," said Anna, waving away the comment. "What else is up?"

"Ah, well, I'm trying to write my will and needed some advice."

"Ah." Anna blinked and glanced away, looking uncomfortable. "What can I do to help?"

"I was thinking about Mum and Dad," said Emma, realizing that she'd made things slightly awkward. "What do you, um, think I should do about it all?"

"Well include them, obviously," said Anna. "It'd be stupid to exclude Mum and Dad from your will."

"Should I just, ah, split things evenly between them?"

"That sounds about right," said Anna, swallowing. "Was… was that all?"

"One more thing," said Emma. "I named you my executor."

"O-oh, um, well," stuttered Anna, blinking. "That, um, well, I- okay then."

"Are you sure?" asked Emma worriedly. "I don't want to force you into something you don't want to do."

"Y-yes," said Anna, nodding. "I'm honored, really. I guess it's just not something I thought about."

"Yeah, I was kind of the same way," said Emma, scratching her head. "I got my ass kicked from here to London today during, ah, well I believe the term is 'team bonding time'."

"Really?" asked Anna, jumping on the new topic. "Tell me about it?"

"Sure, it went like this…."

Emma's recount of the fighting handily sidestepped the more violent parts, such as the time Emily punched a hole through her neck with a water streamer. From there, the conversation snowballed. Her platoon's reserved response to her presence and Ingrid's frustratingly stonewalled blockage of any attempts to manage the platoon found their way into an angry rant about Emma's day.

"Ah, well, I'm sure it will be fine," said Anna soothingly as Emma dropped onto her bed in a huff. "It does sound a lot like back when we first moved to Mitakihara though."

"How so?" asked Emma dryly.

"Well, you remember the time with Miyuki?"

Emma grimaced. Miyuki had been a particularly unpleasant girl back in Emma's first year of study. Miyuki had taken the lead in a small group project and done just about everything possible to push Emma to the side and minimize her involvement. "Yeah."

"Well, do you remember how we dealt with it?"

"I remember wanting to 'accidentally' kick a football into her face," said Emma. "Technically, that's not violence, right?"

Anna laughed. "Yes, I remember that as well. But I was referring more to the fact that you ended up just flatly telling her that you were sick of it and would be participating."

"Oh, that's right, I did that too," said Emma. There had actually been a bit of a screaming match, but Emma wasn't going to press Anna's rose-tinted remembrance of the event. "Wait, are you suggesting I do the same here?"

"I mean, it can't make things much worse than they are, can it?" asked Anna. "Mrs. Jones sounds like she would appreciate that sort of response."

"I guess," said Emma, scratching her nose. "I guess I'll try it later, when we deploy."

"When is that, have you been keeping track?" asked Anna.

"It's not for awhile," said Emma, double-checking on her chronometer just in case. "I've still got some time to kill."

There followed an awkward silence.

"Well, I should probably get started on my assignment sooner rather than later," said Anna, scratching her cheek. "If, um, if it's alright with you?"

"Oh, yeah, sure," said Emma, nodding. "You go on ahead, I'll finish my will then."

"Alright, good bye. See you soon."

* * *

Emma finished her will in an hour or so, and whiled the remaining time away playing a football sim by remote connection to the entertainment console. As it turned out, a few of the soldiers under her command were playing as well, and she joined them for a few rounds of casual footballing. It never got very serious, and Emma logged out fairly early and made her way to the hanger.

Emma was, naturally, the first girl to arrive at the hanger bay. Despite this, the hanger, pressurized at the moment, was filled with an astounding amount of activity. Emma found a perch atop a crane and watched the proceedings, her backpack hooked over a small protrusion as the crane swung back and forth, loading things from one deck to another.

She wasn't the only girl who thought watching from a crane was a good plan. After awhile, other girls began to show up, perching on the ends of cranes and looking out over the space. Emma even had a few join her on her crane, though none of them spoke to each other. This was a time for contemplation and meditation on the things to come, after all.

"T-minus thirty minutes," said one of them. "We should probably start getting ready."

"See you on the ground then," said another, giving the group a nod before falling off of the crane. She righted herself smoothly and headed off towards her platoon's dropship.

One by one, they all departed. Emma eventually just jumped at her dropship, pushing herself along with bursts of wind magic and aeromaneuver, before landing gently on the roof with a flicker of light as she transformed in midair. She jumped again, grabbing the gullwing doors of the dropship and swinging herself down to land in a crouch with a thud.

"Lieutenant," said one of her men, nodding as he walked past with a crate of grenades.

"Corporal," said Emma, returning the greeting with a nod. The dropship was busy, with soldiers running around putting together the final parts for their deployment. Armor was already bolted on and weapons were double, then triple checked. Ammunition was being loaded and strapped to bodies, and customizations were being applied for the coming battle.

Emma made her way slowly through the dropship towards the IFV she would be occupying with her command squad. The chatter between soldiers died as she approached, standing out in her red and white costume. A brief moment of discussion, mutual well wishes, and then Emma moved on. She wished she could do more than that.

Emma came to a stop just before the command IFV. Ingrid was standing in front of it, directing things mentally. With a sigh, Emma steeled herself. Anna was probably right, and even if she wasn't, she needed to clear the air between herself and her Warrant Officer. She had ended their last conversation with a sarcastic snipe, and that simply would not do in combat. Emma stepped forward again.

"Chief Jones," she said, nodding to the now-twice-as-massive soldier as Emma came to a stop in front of her. "I take it things are going well?"

"Yes sir," said Ingrid with a nod. "I took the liberty of procuring a hard suit for your person."

"Thank you Chief," said Emma, looking over the armor. It was a standard vacuum suit, plated over with polycarbide and such before being made, by dint of Emma's magic, to meld with her costume. Not always the most popular supplementary equipment among the girls, but Emma had made a point of wearing one every time she'd done an assault drill during training. Laser burn injuries could easily be mitigated with some training to take advantage of magical girl physiology, but that was a drain on soul gem resources that Emma preferred not to worry about. The armor might restrict her movement a bit, but its other shortcomings were readily overcome.

Emma cleared her throat, banishing the gloves that came with her costume and pulled on one of the armored gauntlets. "Chief, we got off to a bad start," she said, using her best Old Royalty voice. "It's too close to deployment for us to have any long discussions about our relationship, so I just want to say that, while I understand where you're coming from, it's very difficult to work with someone when they're very blunt about your failings."

"…I understand," said Ingrid. "I will attempt to discuss things with you more diplomatically in the future. Shall we let bygones be bygones?"

"Yes," said Emma, pulling on the other gauntlet and clenching her fists to make them fit more comfortably. She turned and offered her hand. "Let's work together and do our best."

Ingrid shook Emma's hand. "Does the armor suit you?"

"Yes, thank you," said Emma, clipping the arm guards onto herself under her costume and tightening the straps that held it in place temporarily. Each segment of armor contained several packets of nanobots and insulating polymer, allowing her to add whatever components she needed.

The two of them stayed silent as Emma continued adding armor components to herself. There was too much latent annoyance and anger for Emma to really feel like talking, and Ingrid was simply busy. After the armor plates were in place and the fibers of the suit had been spun into place, Emma spent a bit of magic to make some aesthetic changes to the surface of the armor, making it clash less with her costume. Being a magical girl had certain perks, after all.

Time spun quickly past as this happened, and Emma was soon sitting in the IFV with Ingrid and the other two members of her command squad, Sergeant Majors Beckett and Han, the latter of which Emma had seen before. As Emma had already started expecting, the two soldiers were relatively quiet, avoiding conversation with her.

"T-minus 63 seconds," said the ship AI. "All units brace for hard deceleration in three, two, one."

Emma grabbed one of the various handholds in the IFV as the transport cruiser pulled hard reverse thrust, slamming out of FTL much faster than normal. With the other hand, Emma grabbed her helmet and pushed it onto her head. Information spilled out into three dimensions at a thought, giving her status updates on the fleet, her platoon, the other platoons in her division, and the army group in general. Personal status, such as percent incapacitated and soul gem level, were planted in the permanent bottom right of her field of vision, and her weapons stores and grief cube count were on the left.

What was more important at the time, however, was the target marker system, networked to every AI available to her TacComp and filtered for relevance to her. At the moment, that meant every single enemy ship that had blinked into the system just minutes before. Emma looked up as their ship angled for entry interface, unable to stem her curiosity.

The whole of her field of vision was red with target indicators.


	8. Trembling Fingertips

_The squids have never attacked with anything less than overwhelming force. Beating them back has always been the nearest thing to impossibility that humanity has attempted. Maybe one day we__'__ll have the technology to get past that, but for now__… _

_- Major General Akosua Anan, 2nd Magical Division, 3rd Army Group of the Yangtze_

* * *

_What do you do? You shut up and keep fighting. _

_-First Lieutenant Hanako de la Cruz, 21st Regiment, 6th Magical Division, 8th Army Group of the Yangtze_

* * *

The flight down went unmolested by enemy fire, tied up as the squid were with the Samsaran Home Fleet. Admiral Megan Feldstein, an uncontracted woman, was nevertheless working magic in deep space against the enemy, buying Samsara itself more and more time to get set up for war.

This did not make Emma any less apprehensive as the dropship finished reentry and angled itself towards the city of Helsinberg, located within a valley on the western border of the Kolasi Basin. Helsinberg had first been founded as a stop off on the route between the agricultural regions to Kolasi's west and the industrial facilities of Kolasi's interior and coastline. Set astride a river in a flat, fertile stretch of the valley several kilometers behind the pass to the foothills of the mountains, its position allowed travelers to refill their water tanks and have a bite to eat. Like in the American West millennia ago, service industries quickly sprang up, with trade and other things soon following.

Helsinberg was now a busy commerce and finance center in its region of the planet, profitable in its own right and a steady contributor to the local economy. Its position in the middle of a valley also placed it directly in the path of any cephalopod advance into the Basin to destroy Samsara's ability to continue fighting. This made Helsinberg a key city in the defense of the Kolasi Basin. It was, as much as was possible in the short amount of time available, being turned into a stronghold.

12th Division had been placed in charge of defending the valley, the mountain pass leading to the valley, and the city itself. They were not, however, its first line of defense. Conscription, in the midst of imminent invasion, had provided Helsinberg and the rest of the Basin with the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd Militia Divisions, three quarters of an entire light infantry Corps. Each continent had two or three armies worth of militia, drawn up from the conscription of any physically able person older than eighteen. The sheer magnitude of the force moving towards Samsara made it clear that Samsara's garrison would not be enough to hold the tide. Younger individuals, the infirm, or the possibly useful were moved into either production centers or evacuated into emergency bunkers, since the Home Fleet was unable to provide any escort out of system.

The exception to this evacuation was any magical girl who had contracted relatively recently. They were still being given as much training as possible in time-dilated sims, those who had contracted earlier getting a few more days preparation than those who had contracted the day it became clear that the cephalopods were going to invade Samsara. It wasn't perfect, and it was terribly likely that they would die very quickly, but it would have to do.

The 8th Battalion, as the battalion with the highest number of IFVs, were in charge of ferrying arms and materiel, recently churned out of Kolasi's factories, to the 45th, 46th, and 47th Regiments, who were strengthening the fortifications to Helsinberg's west, north, and south. Each IFV would be accompanied by its soldiers, just in case something happened and manpower was needed. More importantly, it also freed up drones to support moving larger deliveries for the area's heavy defenses and fortifications.

"Chief Jones, what do you think about splitting this workload in half?" asked Emma as she skimmed over the substantial manifest they had been transmitted in midflight. The dropship was making its final approach to land in an empty field to Helsinberg's east. "I've got a few years of logistical training, so it's nothing I can't handle."

Ingrid took a moment to look up Emma's training, then nodded. "This seems reasonable. I will take C and D squad, while you take A and B squad."

"I can work with that," said Emma, breaking the manifest in half and sending the first half to Ingrid. "You complete this part and I'll complete the other."

Ingrid nodded and said no more. Emma fidgeted as she read over her half again. Truth be told, this wasn't something that she relished doing. Logistics was still, ultimately, about moving things around, and it bored her half to death. But it was something that was not sitting around, worrying about the carpet of red overhead that was converging on the planet she was on, so Emma grit her teeth and started planning.

"Alright, A Squad and B Squad, listen up," Emma said into the platoon battlenet after the dropship landed and their vehicles had arrived at their fall back position. "The platoon will be splitting in half to deal with deliveries faster and more efficiently. There's a lot to drop off, so I'll be assigning everyone a number to make it easier to coordinate." There was a second of delay, before each team in the two squads had been subtitled by a number, one through eight. "These are your assignments-," Emma transmitted these from the manifest "-which may or may not have been shuffled around since the manifest was sent to us, so keep me updated on what you have and have not dropped off. Everyone understand?"

Emma received a series of affirmatives from the team leaders.

"Good, I'll see you at the warehouses," said Emma. She unbuckled her seatbelt and got up, jumping down after Ingrid, Beckett, and Han and helping them to unload the equipment they'd brought.

Their fall back position was an elementary school on the southern side of Helsinberg. Three stories tall with a gymnasium/indoor football pitch on the roof, Public School 7S was a fairly new building, erected when the city began to expand very rapidly in response to the economic boom trade and commerce provided. Originally made of cement, it was now faced with ablative sheeting and composite polymers, to give it further strength in case of attack. What struck Emma, however, as she was carrying crates of grenades from the IFV to the classroom she would be staying in, was the disparity between the school, with its relatively modern interior and well maintained facilities, to the grimy, somewhat ill-kept looking streets and residences surrounding it.

"Why are the streets around here so littered with stuff?" Emma asked Sergeant Beckett as they made another trip. "Shouldn't there be people cleaning things?"

"Samsara's not like Earth," said Beckett, hefting the crate up a little higher as he spoke. "It's still run under capitalism and, inevitably, it's started segregating along class 's a pretty big income disparity, especially in a city like Helsinberg that's expanded very rapidly in the last decade or so."

"But why aren't people helping them then?" asked Emma, shocked. "Shouldn't you be making sure that everyone gets pulled up with the economy?"

Beckett snorted. "Yeah, like that'll ever happen."

"What do you mean?"

Beckett sighed. "Earth represents a situation where there is no scarcity of resources, so it's very easy to be generous, especially since allocs don't restrict basic needs. The Samsaran Economy has wide variation of resource availability, and so there is a strong incentive to gather as much as you can for yourself and those who are close to you. It's basic human greed."

Emma considered this. "Then shouldn't Governance- I mean the local government, sorry- be trying to mitigate this?"

"Oh they're just as greedy," said Beckett. "Everyone wants power and money, and they're perfectly okay with screwing someone else over to get it."

"…that's terrible."

"It's life," shrugged Beckett, setting his crate down in the classroom. "I come from a colony further out on the edge of the Samsaran Sphere, before the squid attacked. I was a poor kid, but was able to get into a military track early and managed to find my way off world from there."

"Are your family still there?" asked Emma, setting her crate down beside Beckett's and leaning against it for a short breather.

"They're all dead," said Beckett. "Squid attacks."

"Oh. I'm, uh, I'm sorry."

"Eh, it's been a few years now," said Beckett with a sigh. "I've had my time to mourn. What's our next step?"

Emma glanced over their supply list and checked off the last two crates. "We're done here, so we need to get down to the warehouse district by the river and start loading up."

"I'll meet you outside then, sir," said Beckett, nodding at Emma before departing. Emma watched him go, brow furrowed. It was difficult for her to understand the mindset that went into intentionally forcing others into reduced economic status. It had been part of her basic history and economic studies, of course, but Beckett had been right in saying that Earth was much more equalized, socially and economically. The only way you could have been "poor" in either London or Mitakihara had been if you'd just spent all your allocs for no particular reason, and that was really more a case of bad alloc management. It seemed petty now, the way her family had worried so much about allocs, when they had always been able to live in their apartment comfortably and get food on demand from the synthesizer every day.

She couldn't imagine, remotely, what it must be like to not have that.

With a sigh, Emma got to her feet and made her way back to the street and the playgrounds around the school, where the IFVs had been parked. The play sets and sandboxes had been bulldozed away days earlier to make space. Emma paused as she came to the front doors, seeing a sight she hadn't been expecting. A girl, about her age, was sitting on the steps of the school, looking out over the IFVs sadly.

"Who are you?" asked Emma as she walked up. "Why haven't you- oh."

The girl had turned around at Emma's footsteps, and Emma had caught a flash of magic. A soul gem twisting into ring form.

"Hi," said the girl quietly, turning back to the vehicles.

Emma walked up to her and sat down beside her. "What's your name?" Emma asked.

"Tracy," said the clearly very new magical girl. "You?"

"Emma. What're you doing here?"

"I used to go to school here," said Tracy. "There was a set of monkey bars, just over there-," Tracy pointed at where a group of C Squad IFVs were parked "-that I loved as a kid. Was always climbing around."

"Ah," said Emma. "I know what that's like."

"You do?" asked Tracy, surprised. "Where are you from?"

"I'm from Earth," said Emma, smiling with self-depreciation. "So I guess my experience can't be that bad. But I had this football I'd been playing with since I was four. The day I realized I'd outgrown it was really depressing."

Tracy snorted. "You're right, that's a shit example."

"Well, so much of empathy, right?" said Emma. "When'd you contract?"

"A couple days ago," said Tracy. "I'm taking a break, before they chuck me back into the sims."

Emma took in Tracy's tired, slightly disheveled frame. "Been sleeping well?"

The fresh contractee shook her head. "No."

"Try and get something to help you then," advised Emma, looking away again and standing up.

"Why?" asked Tracy.

"When I was in training, we were told it was best to sleep between sims," said Emma. "I always found it helped the lessons stick."

"Thanks," said Tracy, blinking. "I'll, uh, see if the medical guys can give me something then."

"No problem," said Emma, turning for her IFV. "See you around."

"Bye," called Tracy. Emma waved over her shoulder.

"What took you?" asked Beckett as she pulled herself into the vehicle.

"Just helping out a new recruit," said Emma, closing the door behind her before falling into her seat with a laugh. "Damn, who'd have thought?"

"What?"

"I'm completely green, and I just gave a new contractee advice," said Emma, buckling in as the IFV moved off. "That was completely absurd."

* * *

The warehouse district resembled a madhouse. A well coordinated, smoothly moving madhouse, but a madhouse nonetheless.

"Alright, it looks like there's a pretty substantial wait, so head over to the other side of the river and pick up the goods for 1st Battalion," ordered Emma as she helped Beckett and Han load blocks of ablative armor into their IFV. The material was destined for breakdown by fortification drones, to be extruded onto embankments and concrete barriers on the front. "Team 6, how are you- good, swing around and join Team 3 to get 1st Battalion's gear out to them. The south side's going to be tied up for awhile until this bloody AT Turret gets moved."

"Why is there a fully assembled AT Turret anyway?" grumbled Beckett, shoving a block farther into the vehicle.

"It is destined for defense of the main highway," said Han, pushing another block into the IFV for Beckett to move down. "It is likely easier to assemble it here, then emplace it."

"Every single one of the turrets we've ever used has been assembled on site though," countered Beckett.

"Maybe they don't have enough combat engineers," suggested Han, as Emma passed her another block and went back to retrieve more, still coordinating with the other teams. "On an unrelated note, Beckett, have you been talking to the Lieutenant?"

"Yeah, what of it?" asked Beckett.

"Nothing," said Han with a shrug.

"It's never nothing with you," said Beckett. "You don't talk unless you have a point to make."

"I just think you're setting yourself up for more grief," said Han. "She's not going to last."

"Well aren't you just cheery little miss sunshine," said Beckett with a snort. "There's no harm in teaching her a little about colony life."

"Hn."

"Oh come off it," said Beckett, rolling his eyes behind his faceplate. "We're not going to become friends over something like this."

"I would rather not risk it," said Han. "You remember-."

"This is the last of the blocks," said Emma, dropping a stack of the things beside the IFV and tossing one up to Beckett. "Let's load up and head out."

"Yes sir," said Beckett and Han, helping her put them inside and climbing in. The IFV quickly pulled out of its spot and moved into the long, relatively slow moving line behind the AT Turret.

"So where are you from, Sergeant Han?" asked Emma as they cruised along, searching for a small opening so that they could use the IFV's offroading ability.

"I am from New Hubei, Yangtze Sector," said Han.

"What's it like there?"

Han paused, before saying simply that: "It is nice."

"In what way?"

"It is just nice."

Emma rolled her eyes. "Look, come on, we can have a conversation about this can't we? It's not as if we're going to suddenly become best friends over what your hometown was like."

"…."

Emma turned to Beckett. "Is she always like this?" she asked, crossing her arms.

"Yup," said Beckett dryly. "Lady of few words, our Sergeant Han."

Emma sighed. "Right. Well then, how about you Sergeant? What was your hometown like?"

"It was a lot like the area around Public School 7S," said Beckett. "Dirty, unkempt, and scattered with shining jewels that were somebody's pet project for power and wealth. It wasn't a place that you stayed in, you got out as fast as you could."

"It sounds like a difficult place to live."

"It was. Still, there were some good parts. There was a guy on my street who made really good, and I mean Goddess-blessed levels of good, fried skewers. Nobody ever figured out exactly how he got the permit to do a street cart, but we knew he had a daughter."

"Three guesses then," said Emma shaking her head. "Jeez, what a wish."

"Hey, don't look down upon a wish like that," said Beckett. "Especially when he managed to do pretty well for himself. The allocs from his daughter's pay helped a lot too, he and his wife managed to move into some higher level housing after a few months. It worked out for them, so why not make a wish like that?"

"It just seems so… short sighted," said Emma, crossing her legs. "I mean, sure, it worked out this time, but it's not always gonna work out for every girl. How can you be sure of that sort of thing?"

"You can not," said Han. "But it is important to try anyway."

"She speaks!" said Emma with a grin. "Praise the Goddess!"

"But she's got a point," said Beckett. "We all wish for something with all of our heart. Magical girls are lucky, they get to have that wish fulfilled. Us normal people-," he gestured at himself and Han "-have to make do with hard work and blind luck."

Emma frowned and thought about this. She thought about it for the rest of the drive.

* * *

The work continued for the remainder of the day. Emma, just like everyone else, kept checking the updates on her TacComp. As the hours passed, the outlook became increasingly bleak as the fleet's numbers dwindled. Finally, just before the regiment took a breather for dinner, the projections stabilized to about eight hours until cephalopod planet fall. Dinner, therefore, became a rushed affair that nobody had time to enjoy.

Soon enough, they were back at the business of preparing for invasion. Emma found herself needed at the platoon's mustering point more often than not, eventually taking a seat in the gymnasium as the minutes ticked toward planetfall and coordinating the logistics from there while Ingrid took care of the tactical details.

"Alright, Team 7, you're on point for the next escort duty," said Emma, moving around the team assignments on her TacComp's display. "Ah, Team 13, how is D Squad's fuel situation?"

"We got a refuel at the last redoubt," said D Squad's command team leader, the IFVs on the way back a delivery at one of the area's point defense turrets. "We'll need a top off at the mustering point, but we'll be fine."

"Good, I'll put you in to the next slot at the fuel depot," said Emma, gesturing at the relevant slots on her display and flicking to the next task. "Right, Team Fi-." There came a knocking on the doors to the gymnasium, before they opened with a slight creak. "Eh?"

"Uhh, Lieutenant Tracy Geyeller, reporting for duty," said Tracy, shifting side to side awkwardly. She had transformed into her costume of blue and white, trimmed with silver and looking like some sort of naval officer from the 1700s. Behind her was a nervous looking girl wearing a lightly colored dress with a black jacket over top. Tracy gestured at her as she kept talking. "I'm also here with Lieutenant Bridgette Hayer."

Emma blinked at them as they stood before her and saluted. It took her a moment, to really understand what was happening, before she managed to take a deep breath and put on her Football Team Captain face.

"Ah, you're supposed to be my fire support," said Emma, setting her TacComp's details to the side and standing up. "What're your abilities? You first, Tracy."

"Well, cutlasses as far as I can tell," said Tracy, unsheathing said broad, heavy blade from her side and spinning it about. Bridgette edged away. "Other than that, I can't figure anything out."

"Alright, we'll see how that develops," said Emma, folding her arms, before nodding at Bridgette. "And you, Bridgette?"

"Um, j-javelins," said Bridgette, manifesting, and clutching tightly, one of the projectiles into her hands. "T-that's all I've found out."

"Right then," said Emma, sighing thoughtfully as she considered the incredibly raw rookies in front of her. She was really not the right person for this, but it looked like they had been put into her hands, so she would have to do her best. "You're both so new… I think that you'd best stay here."

"Wait, what?" asked Tracy. "Hey now, what the hell are you saying?!"

"Please understand, it's not that I don't think you're competent," said Emma, trying to let Tracy down gently. "It's just that I don't think you're suited to a front line position."

"I-I'm okay with this," said Bridgette, losing some of her nervousness and loosening her grip on her javelin. "I, um, do you want me on the roof then?"

Emma nodded. "The top of the gymnasium has turrets and a parapet now, make sure you stay behind cover."

"I will," said Bridgette, nodding and jogging out of the room. Tracy and Emma were left alone, the former still seething and the latter waiting for her to say something.

"Tch, I don't believe this," said Tracy, looking to the side angrily. "I didn't contract to sit in the back like some freeloader."

"I understand, it's very frustrating," said Emma, rubbing her neck awkwardly. "But, ah, you know I'm not that experienced either, so I'm kinda in the same boat."

"How's that then?" asked Tracy. "Your last example was pretty shitty, should I expect better this time?"

"This platoon's last platoon commander was killed in action a few weeks ago," said Emma. "I'm a replacement, which means I'm not exactly welcome."

Tracy paused. "Okay, that's actually not that bad of an example," she conceded with a sigh. "But why can't I go out onto the line, to hold a redoubt or something? Just sitting here waiting makes me feel so… useless."

Emma sighed and considered. "Let me check with Chief Jones later," she said eventually. "Maybe we can put you into convoy duty, for supply runs."

"Really?" asked Tracy brightening, before scowling again. "Wait, what's the difference between that and guard duty?"

"There's a slightly higher chance of death," said Emma bluntly. "Look, Tracy, you're three days old. Just deal with it for now, yeah?"

"…fine," said Tracy, kicking at the ground unhappily. "I'll go join Bridgette up top for now."

"See you around," said Emma. She waited until Tracy had left hearing range before slumping back onto the crates.

"Goddess," she muttered, rubbing at her temples. "Please, please tell me I didn't behave like that earlier."

Emma's TacComp replied by telling her she had fifteen messages requiring immediate attention.

"Shit, shit, right," said Emma, pulling her interface back and continuing to coordinate the movements of her platoon. "Right, sorry guys, had to deal with our fire support. Team 3, I need you to make a pickup at Warehouse 5…."

* * *

Team three's delivery was among the last that Third Platoon was in charge of. For the last hour before the squids were expected to make planet fall, Third Platoon was able to rest and prepare themselves mentally for the upcoming fight.

The men were quiet as they waited beside their IFVs, the armored vehicles parked into alleys and along side streets, then covered with active camo tarpaulins to prevent them from being bombed. Part of Emma considered going out for a walk, to talk to the men and see how they were doing, but the cautious side of her, prodded into wakefulness by her recent beat down at the hands of the other girls in C Company, kept her in the depths of Public School 7S.

"When we go out, we may need to hold you in the back," Ingrid was saying as she and Emma went over the plans for the defense. "We will probably be responding to embattled light infantry, so it is best if we can open fire from a distance while reinforcing."

"Will we need to worry about counter-fire?" asked Emma. "AT weapons could do serious damage to us."

"Depending on what happens, it's possible," said Ingrid. "The squid aren't known for using particularly unusual strategies, so we can expect a frontal assault of some kind with large numbers designed to overwhelm."

"Will we be able to stop them?"

"Not likely," said Ingrid bluntly. "Our maneuver will facilitate a retreat to a line further back in the defenses, unless we're ordered otherwise."

"Otherwise?"

"Sometimes, heavy infantry is committed to sacrifice itself in a rearguard action," said Ingrid. "If the time comes for us to do so, we will need to be ready for it."

Emma gulped. "I… that's…."

Ingrid nodded. "It is the reality of our situation. You will likely be evacuated, but prepare yourself as best you can for our deaths."

"I… I will," said Emma, nodding. She bit her lip and frowned at the ground as Ingrid walked out and went to attend to some other minor detail.

Ingrid was always so very blunt. It made it difficult for Emma, especially at times like this. There was more than enough stress going around already, why did Ingrid have to add to that?

Rubbing her eyes, Emma quietly made her way out of the room and climbed the steps up to the gymnasium's roof. The only people up there were Bridgette and Tracy, sitting side by side behind the parapet. Overhead, stray debris from the massive space battle streamed down from the sky, burning up in the atmosphere as they tumbled out of space. The crackoom of point defense cannons blasting the larger fragments, incapable of burning up enough to avoid damage in the impact area, thundered over the valley as Emma stepped forward.

"One of you should be on watch," said Emma as she approached the two new girls. Bridgette flinched and jumped to her feet, but Tracy stood more slowly.

"The projections say that we don't need to worry about that for another hour though," said Tracy.

"Paranoia saves lives," said Emma, looking up at the sky. "Why do you think we've got the men spread out already?"

Tracy frowned and looked out over the parapet. "Is it really that serious?" she asked, leaning up on it with her arms. "Training glossed over a lot of things."

"I've been killed at least three dozen times now," said Emma blandly, summoning a halberd to lean against at the parapet. "The most memorable ones are when I was shot through the head by a sniper, gutted by a Shock Trooper, and cut in half by a laser cannon."

Tracy and Bridgette looked horrified.

"Didn't they get that far in the sims?" asked Emma, blinking. "Goddess, you don't even know about…."

"About?" asked Tracy cautiously.

Emma sighed and shook her head. "Alright, look, your TacComps should be operational by now. It'll tell you about your soul gem levels, percent incapacitation, and other stuff. There are some things you need to make sure you remember. First." She turned and pointed her halberd at them. "Your soul gem is your life. Keep an eye on its levels at all times, and retreat if it starts get below 50%. Are we clear?"

Tracy and Bridgette nodded, both instinctively feeling for their soul gems. The real ones, not the decoys.

"Also, stop doing that," said Emma, gesturing at their hands. "That'll just tip off a sniper and get your soul gem shot off and leave you vulnerable."

The girls flinched and pulled their hands back to their sides.

"What else?" asked Tracy.

"Right. Second, your personal defense drones protect you from the enemy's drone compliment," said Emma, tapping her backpack with the haft of her halberd. Her drones flew out and swirled about her, landing onto her shoulders and hair. "They're a little annoying sometimes," she continued, picking one out of her ear, "but they're needed. Keep an eye on them and retreat the moment your compliment gets lower than 50%."

Tracy and Bridgette nodded again. They had their own backpacks, but they had been set aside to be more comfortable. Guiltily, they glanced at each other, then away.

"Third," said Emma, tempted to laugh at their naivety, "never, ever stand still. Keep moving and keep your senses active. Understand?"

Tracy and Bridgette nodded a third time. "We understand," they said quietly, in unison.

"Good," said Emma, sighing and leaning against her halberd again. She turned back to the parapet morosely. "Bloody hell. You two need more time."

The debris overhead continued streaking by as they stood silently, looking out over the suburbs surrounding Public School 7S. The night had gone freakishly quiet, despite the distant thunder of cannons. All light in the city was extinguished, in order to make targeting all the more difficult for the squids. Any light that remained, enhanced by their implants, came from the debris overhead and the light of the stars or Samsara's moons. It was 0147.

"U-um, is that normal?" asked Bridgette, pointing at a piece of debris.

"What about it?" asked Emma, looking up. The three of them waited for a moment, until a cannon round slammed into it. There was a flare of bright purple, only distantly visible even to them.

"…No, that's not normal," said Emma. "Bridgette, call it in."

"R-right," said Bridgette, nodding. "Um, C Company, Third Platoon to Kolasi Unified Command, r-reporting unusual debris falling for grid a-alfa six four."

Emma watched the debris as it fell, following the trajectory output by her TacComp. It was destined to fly far over head, dropping into the sea kilometers away.

"R-right, understood," said Bridgette, before turning to Tracy and Emma. "Um, they say that they're going to send some drones to investigate in flight."

"Hmm. Guys, are you seeing this?" Emma asked over wideband telepathy. She sent the older magical girls a retinal capture of the debris, zoomed in on her implants with relevant data attached.

"Nice catch, new girl," replied Alanis. "That looks really weird."

"Not my catch, thank the new new girl," said Emma blandly. "Say hello Bridgette, Tracy."

"H-hi."

"Hello."

"Ah, well, in any case, it's good to know," said Alanis.

"Yeah, that's not right," added Emily. "That purple could be a Magi Caeli's barrier, but that'd be one hell of a barrier. Most of us can't pull that off."

"We should be alert," said Qing Duo. "Fatima, Mei Ling?"

"We're looking at it now," said Fatima. "KOLUCOM has drones inbound, so we'll see soon enough."

"But, aren't squid energy shields purple?" asked Emma.

"Let's not blow a magical girl out of the sky, yeah?" said Alanis dryly. "Caution, new girl. It's a thing."

Emma rolled her eyes but said nothing. The points of light that represented a pair of combat drones could be seen streaking over head, making high-G turns and matching vectors with the debris.

Seconds later, they vanished in blooms of fire as the debris pitched hard downward, shedding a large chunk that tumbled away. The debris was definitely not debris.

"Shit, that's a drop pod," said Alanis. "Everyone get into cover."

"Shouldn't we move to intercept?" asked Emma. "We can take it out as soon as it hits the ground."

"Fucking- no, we are not going to intercept a multi-ton projectile, dumbass," said Emily derisively. "Get into fucking cover, new girl, so that we can actually respond to the damn attack! Fucking new girls…"

"Well you heard her, let's get inside," said Emma, annoyed as she gestured at Tracy and Bridgette. They hurried down the steps as the point defense cannons redoubled in firing rate, beginning an attempt to annihilate any debris that came in. Other large pieces of debris, thought to be just fragments of destroyed spaceship, also began to pitch down and drop towards the ground with bright flares of light. Some were destroyed under the combined fire of several cannons. Others slipped by, Emma's TacComp lighting up as hundreds, then thousands of drop pods were identified.

"The squid are beginning their assault," Emma announced over the battlenet. "All units, prepare for battle."


	9. Greyhounds in the Slips

_Sometimes, it's difficult to decide whether I hate Airborne Troopers more, or Rangers. Both of them are well trained and both of them are capable of flanking the shit out of you out of Goddess-damned nowhere. _

_- Captain Heather Ichimaru, D Company, 33rd Regiment, 9th Magical Division, 2nd Army Group of the Nile_

* * *

_Combat with squid comes down to two things: fire power and a decent magical girl. Trying to do anything without either is a recipe for massive casualties and no gains. _

_-Sergeant Major Kevin Vanderbilt, 17th Regiment, 4th Light Infantry Division, 4th Army Group of the Yangtze_

* * *

The sheer volume of drop pods, typical for any squid offensive, had overwhelmed the point defense cannons. Then the Airborne Troopers, well armed, well armored, and well trained, had begun overwhelming the defenses. Most of the outer cannons had been disabled, and the Helsinberg perimeter was in serious contention.

More importantly, the stream of supply vehicles had to be halted until the threat of the Airborne had been dealt with. The high mountains surround Kolasi made it difficult for aircraft larger than a small regional jet to operate, so the large, commercial aerodome had been built outside the Basin. Now, the route had been cut off, and critical supplies were no longer being flown to the front. The Basin needed to be reopened as quickly and as permanently as possible.

"You can get back to the roof now," said Ingrid at Bridgette, who had been fiddling with one of her javelins nervously. "Stay under the parapet."

"Y-yes sir," said Bridgette, nodding, leaving for the roof yet again. Emma had the distinct feeling that Bridgette would be running back and forth as the battle shifted.

"Aren't you her subordinate, technically?" asked Tracy to Ingrid.

"Yes."

"And, uh, doesn't that mean that you're not allowed to give her orders, technically?"

"Yes."

"Then-?"

"Because Chief Jones knows more about shooting squid in the face than you and me combined," answered Emma.

"Oh."

It was nearly silent inside the school except for the echo of weapon's fire piercing through the walls. Tracy began pacing.

"We need to get out there," said Tracy eventually.

"Yeah," said Emma, nodding. "But we can't just run around. And you're not going anywhere."

"Grrr…"

"She has a point though," said Emma over mental chat to Ingrid, checking her updates tensely and tapping a foot against the floor. "Why haven't we been given the order to move? The squid have already taken the outer defenses, they're going to overrun us at this rate."

"I suspect KOLUCOM is hoping to draw the squid into a trap," said Ingrid. "As our center gives way, they can send the 12th in to hold it, then 8th Battalion to break the offensive. Using heavier armor runs the risk of destroying the fortifications that the squid took from us, either by stray fire or by the squid suicide bombing the fortifications."

"And the landings in central Allatia?" asked Emma, referring to the continent the Kolasi Basin was part of.

"If we cannot permanently hold the passes and the routes to the aerodomes, then there is no point," said Ingrid. "Better to plan well and destroy this attack, then fight rashly and have to expend more men and resources later for minimal gain."

Emma nodded and stewed. Truth be told, she wanted, like Tracy, to get out there sooner rather than later, but she would wait if she was going to be forced to. Fortunately, she didn't have to wait much longer.

"C Company, mount up," ordered Fatima. "We are to break the enemy offensive with the Battalion at gird marker delta seven six two. 45th Regiment is already committed to hold them, we have five minutes until they will need to fall back."

"Let's go," said Ingrid, standing. Emma followed her, biting back a shiver. Rebecca and Varsha were in 45th Regiment. She hoped they were okay.

"Hey, hey, what about me?" asked Tracy, trailing behind.

"If we need you, I'll give you a call, alright?" said Emma. "Let's hope not though, because it'll mean shit has hit the fan very badly."

Tracy subsided in frustration as the doors of the school swung shut behind Emma and Ingrid.

"The battalion is to attack by company," continued Fatima over battlenet. "We will be handling the left center. Form up in wedge formation, magical girls behind the main spearhead . We open with a barrage, then drive into the enemy ranks. Platoon leaders, you will conduct extermination operations against enemy Airborne troops in coordination with the rest of 8th Battalion. Alanis, you have tactical command."

"Understood," said Alanis. "Qing, we attack under cover of your mirrors. Emily will provide medium range cover, I will provide long range, and Emma will conduct interdiction operations."

"Pretty way to say I'm the bait," said Emma flatly as she and Ingrid climbed into their IFV, along with Beckett and Han, and were immediately heading towards the edge of the city. Around them, the platoon's IFVs were pulling out of hiding and streaming out of their positions. "Please come get me if I get in trouble."

"Don't do something stupid like the time you attacked Qing Duo solo and we'll be cool," said Emily. "You're an idiot, but we're not going to just let you die."

"Thanks, Emily, real up-lifting."

"Hey, you asked for-."

"Quiet down, the two of you," said Alanis with a disapproving growl. "You want to bicker and have angry sex, you can do it off the battlefield."

"I do not want to-!"

"What the fuck are you-!"

"Cut the chatter, C Company," broke in the Division Commander. "You're cluttering the battlenet."

There was a brief embarrassed silence that had Beckett snickering at Emma's blushing visage.

"A-anyway," Emma continued over telepathy as the platoon's vehicles exited the city and grouped into the appropriate formation under VI direction. "Do you want me to take point, Alanis? I can make a lot of noise and then fall back."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," said Emma. "Vortex spheres are pretty flash and do a decent amount of damage, especially in combination with explosives."

"Keep it tight and keep an eye on your supplies," said Alanis. "Otherwise, then, I think that works. Emily, keep an eye on her and be prepared to yank her out."

"Yeah, yeah," said Emily in a put upon voice. "Fucking babysitting duty…"

"Ass."

"Noob."

"Moving on," sighed Alanis. "Goddess, I've never heard a more unprofessional pre-battle plan."

"Well we wouldn't need one if it weren't for the FNG," said Emily.

"Only because any complicated plan would go right over your head," Emma sniped back.

"Hey-!"

"For the love of the Goddess, shut up, both of you!" Qing Duo mentally shouted.

"Thank you, Qing Duo," said Alanis. "Now, the river is going to be on our right flank. Overall, we'll need to drive the enemy into the river and pin them against A Company's advance. Any shield generators and defense turrets we encounter along the way will need to be taken care of, but those can safely be left to the rest of the division. Understood?"

Emma clicked in her affirmative, taking care not to speak too much and gain Qing Duo's wrath again. She didn't seem like the sort of girl who yelled a lot, unlike Emily, and Emma figured that getting Qing Duo to yell at you was something of an accomplishment.

The plan had been transmitted across the battalion already, so Alanis's speech wasn't entirely necessary. Both the general overview and the specific details had already been transmitted to Emma during the forming up process, but hearing Alanis confirm what Emma already knew was… well, it wasn't comforting, exactly, as a variation of this plan had been in every sim Emma had ever been in, but it followed the romantic expectations behind a battle and lent a degree of order to the oncoming chaos.

As long as there was a plan, things couldn't go too terribly, right?

Silence reigned in their heads as the company formed up. Conversely, the battlenet got increasingly noisy as the number of units in their calculated combat radius increased. Fortunately, the conversation was immediately filtered, Emma's TacComp switching over to TeamComm and DistressComm only .

The formation of IFVs was tightened, the command teams collating into the center while the four platoons formed into a giant wedge. Their autocannon soon opened up, blasting out three-centimeter wide projectiles to defeat enemy shielding in concert with close air support. Impact reports demonstrated wide spread success. It seemed that the counter-thrust would have enough power to avoid committing the heavy armored battalions.

A few more seconds passed, then: "Leading vehicles, brace for impact," said Alanis. "We salute your sacrifice."

"Godspeed, Lieutenants," answered the leader of the wedge.

Emma closed her eyes and cut the connection to the leaders. She couldn't handle listening to them on comms. It was bad enough that she had to watch her display as-

-the leading vehicles sailed over friendly trenches and slammed into the enemy line. The lucky ones smashed into energy shields , the front ends of the vehicles crumpling against the immovable barrier for a moment until the generators failed and the IFVs went skidding to a stop. The soldiers inside had time to escape and engage in close combat immediately, their vehicle's turret still operational and providing suppressing fire as they did their level best to blast away any squid in their path.

The unlucky ones kept going, wheeling to the left and right to arc back towards friendly lines as their guns kept firing. These were quickly picked off by Hydra missile drones, AT missiles designed to rip apart human tanks blasting the much more lightly armored IFVs into so much scrap.

Emma came next. With a nod at Ingrid, Emma blasted upwards out of the turret hatch and spun in midair, casting vortex spheres out in a wide arc of fully automatic wind explosions. Dust and debris were thrown high into the air as she fell, the cutting blades of her magic ripping into the ground and into squids. Those without shielding , shattered perhaps from autocannon rounds or misfortunate enough to be briefly disabled by rifle fire, were torn into pieces as the small storm ripped its way across what part of the battlefield Emma could effect.

The sharp tang of ablative sheeting burning away made Emma twist and bounce off of the air to avoid incoming laser fire. Her armor had taken a hit, a line of blackened ablative shielding revealing the sizzling polycarbide underneath. Combat instincts screamed at her, and Emma was tumbling to the left to hit the ground far harder than was ideal, a missile from a Hydra passing just over head to impact harmlessly against the ground.

Wincing, Emma rolled to her feet and lashed out with a sarissa to bring the Hydra to the ground, followed immediately by flash of magic to knock the next missile careening into a squid position. Laser fire and more missiles converged on her, most deflected or absorbed by Emma's drones, some passing through and scoring lines across her armor. The intensity of fire increased as Emma kept dodging and she suddenly realized that she was far deeper into the enemy lines than was ideal.

Then an explosion and a blast of blue-white light. Emma was thrown sideways and landed with a crunch. Everything hurt, then everything stopped hurting as she reached for her magic and crushed the pain into a ball and threw it away. Emma's TacComp reported damage everywhere, with armor burnt away on her left side and her arm dislocated on the right. Emma needed time to recover, she needed a second to shove her arm back into its socket, but now there were Airborne troopers coming towards her, weapons up and firing, and she needed to get back up and-

-water streamers punched into the Airborne, throwing them back as their shields flared. Emma felt a hand pull her to her feet.

"Fucking new girl!" Emily shouted, directing water into the enemy. "What did I say? What did I fucking say?!"

"Oh shut up!" Emma yelled back, snapping her arm back into its socket before priming a pair of frag grenades and throwing them onto the enemy position.

"Yeah, I'll shut up," said Emily angrily as the grenades went off and the two of them spread out to retreat towards Qing Duo and her mirrors. "I'll shut up when you stop doing shit like this."

Emma bit back a retort and kept running, skidding behind one of Qing Duo's mirrors and bringing a handful of cubes up against her soul gem. It seemed that Emma's distraction had worked, allowing the other three girls in C Company lay complete waste to their area and capture a small pillbox. They all piled in to regroup and plan.

"Good work," said Alanis, recharging her soul gem as Qing Duo kept up constant suppressing fire with an assault rifle through the firing slot. "Time to make the push, you ready to go?"

"Used up a lot of juice just now, give me a sec," said Emma.

"Tch," snorted Emily.

"Oh don't start," said Emma.

"Didn't say anything," said Emily, coolly looking away from Emma.

"Focus, girls," said Alanis reprovingly, flicking her tail idly and squinting at the enemy forces, pulling back in surprisingly good order. "Fatima, can you get…"

Emma glared at Emily briefly before turning her attention to Third Platoon. "Chief Jones," she called out over the platoon's teamcomm, "how did the attack go?"

"We have taken 2 5% casualties , two KIA and ten wounded," reported Ingrid. "Third Platoon is arrayed along sector five-," Emma's TacComp lit up the relevant positions on her map, stretching across a kilometer long arc from the river towards the mountains on the valley's southward side "-and is holding steady with support from the 45th and 9th Militia Division."

"How hot is your area?" asked Emma, requesting a supply truck from the motor pool in the city. "We're about to make an assault, I want to make sure you guys are supplied for the attack."

"The squid have our positions zeroed with mortars," said Ingrid. "But there are no snipers. Something small and fast-."

"I can do it," said Tracy. Emma bit her tongue. Teamcomm was open to anyone in the platoon, so of course Tracy had heard.

"No, you're not," said Ingrid flatly. "You will not enter combat directly at this time."

"Right, I agree," said Tracy, "I've been listening in and it's… it's scary, and I don't want to get hurt. But I can run pretty quick, Bridgette can too. We'll park a truck back behind the 45th, then run the ammo up to you."

Emma turned towards Alanis for help, but then stopped. Tracy and Bridgette were Emma's responsibility, so it ought to be up to her to make a decision. It was a lot like committing a new member of the football team to a semi-critical role: you had to do it at some point, so it was best to do it when it was relatively safe.

"Tracy, are you absolutely confident that you can do this?" asked Emma.

"Yes."

Emma sighed, but made her decision. "Then I think you've got a decent plan that should work. Remember what I told you earlier?"

"Keep moving, keep an eye on my gem, and keep an eye on my drones," said Tracy.

"Good. Bring Bridgette along, she should be fine if she has command mode on. Chief, any objections?"

"None sir," said Ingrid, though she didn't sound happy about it. "Godspeed then, Lieutenants."

"Thank you," said Tracy confidently. "I won't let you down."

Emma clicked back an affirmative and swapped out her display to see Alanis' plan. She and Fatima had evidently been able to coordinate a push with A Company, who had been able to punch slightly further in than C Company. The two companies would converge on the river bank, C Company first, then A Company. Hopefully, the double-bluff of two companies attacking in alternation, along with air support and artillery fire, would be confusing enough to break cohesion and push the squid into the river, to be bombarded at leisure.

"Alright, C Company, prepare to move," said Alanis. "I'll go first, under cover of transformation. Standard blitz, straight down the middle, on my signal."

"Wait, now?" asked Emma.

"Yes, now. We can't give them time to recover," said Alanis.

"But my platoon still needs resupply!"

"That's unfortunate, but we can't wait," said Alanis, flicking an ear unhappily but unmoving from her position. "They will fight to their strengths and conserve ammunition, but we must push now or we'll lose momentum."

Emma bit her lip and looked away. "Alright," she said. She was more worried about Tracy and Bridgette, but she wasn't going to pitch a fit in the middle of battle. She couldn't, there was too much at stake to make this a problem.

"Then we're all clear," said Alanis. "Emily, gimme a boost." With a flash of forest green magic, Alanis shrunk down into a house-cat again. Emily crouched down and offered an arm for Alanis to jump on to, then carried the magical pet to a firing slot. Glancing back and forth cautiously, Alanis slunk forward, close to the ground, and disappeared from sight amongst the debris.

For several minutes, nothing happened. Then a flash of forest green, before several squids were tossed out of a pillbox without their limbs.

Emma was out of the pillbox first, running forward with arms outstretched. Great spinning whirlwinds, damaging but not very much, immediately made her the biggest target on the field. Emma danced left and right as she advanced, slinging vortex spheres and the occasional grenade but never closing to melee. This she left to Qing Duo, who's reflections were smashing apart squids with brutal swiftness, or Emily, who had taken control of the water within the ichor of wounded squids and used it to strangle them. Alanis was flitting back and forth within the enemy positions, alternately a house cat and a tiger, ripping apart a pillbox with tooth and claw before disappearing between rocks and stones.

Behind this vanguard came C Company's human soldiers, advancing leap-frog style across open ground or diving into pillboxes to provide covering fire from light machine guns. As expected, in the face of a direct assault, the squids concentrated their forces by retreating.

Then A Company began their attack, starting with a massive explosion that briefly stilled combat on the southern bank of the river. Emma suspected Rene had done something with one of her teammates in A Company, given the French girl's pyromancy, but put it aside as she continued her duties. It appeared that the squid had bought into the double bluff, sending squads from the South Bank to the North Bank to support the "true offensive". C Company rallied and Emma was once again on point, making noise to divert attention from Alanis and Emily and taking cover in a pillbox or behind Qing Duo's mirrors to recharge. She was running a bit low on cubes, it looked like-

-the squids had realized what was happening and begun a disorganized, but furious, mortar barrage. Emma had to scramble into a pillbox, diving in amongst a jumble of men before the plasma balls could burn her into oblivion.

"Air support, take out those mortars!" Alanis called over the battlenet as enemy fired quickly began to tighten up. "Quickly!"

"We're trying!" a flyer called back, static tinting the non-telepathic message. "They've got them in pillboxes, we can't-!"

The flyer was cut off. Emma peered out of her pillbox for the magical girl's body, biting her lip as she looked for some sign. If they could recover the soul gem….

"Body sighted, tumbling into sector 5-2!" one of the men behind Emma called out. Emma looked over and caught a glimpse of the girl's body before it hit the ground.

"Medical Team 3 is en route," answered one of the division's medics. "Can we get some cover?"

"I'll go," volunteered Emma. "I'm closest-."

"Negative, you concentrate on the attack," said Alanis tensely. "You have men in your pillbox, use them."

Emma blinked, then turned to the soldiers in the pillbox. There were four of them, mixed from Fourth and Third Platoon. "You heard?" asked Emma.

"Yes," answered one of the soldiers. Her name was Sergeant Donnelley, from Emma's platoon, and was the ranking officer. "We'll give MT3 cover, don't worry sir."

"Right," said Emma, turning back from the entryway and taking a deep breath. She could only hope that she wasn't sending them out for nothing. "Godspeed."

"Thank you sir," said Donnelley as the soldiers braced themselves. "You too. Squad, on my mark."

They sprinted out of the pillbox. Emma was left alone with her thoughts. Only briefly though, until-

"C Company, I've got an idea," said Ayane, coming onto the battlenet. "Me and Emma used to do this maneuver in training where I'd toss her at a position and she'd use the momentum to smash through."

"That's ridiculously stupid," said Alanis.

"We used it in sim though," said Emma. "I took out a squadron of armor with it once."

"In what were probably ideal conditions," said Alanis. "No, I am not going to let you do this."

"Well, our other option is bunker busters," said Ayane. "Which aren't ideal, since we'd have to rebuild the fortifications, and it'd take a lot of bombs."

"The scrub's got a point, actually," said one of Ayane's flight mates. "If we try and bomb them to hell, it'll just give the squids more time to regroup. We want them off balance, right?"

"Fuck," said Emily. "This is dumb. You flygirls are dumb. Everything is fucking dumb! We have sights on them, right? Use the fucking artillery! We'll advance under suppressing fire and then take 'em out in melee."

There was a brief pause as they considered this.

"That is a much better plan," said Alanis. "CAS Squadron, maintain your orbit and prepare to drop weapons as the squid are flushed. I'm calling in the artillery now, everyone prepare to advance."

Emma grimaced and got ready. She hadn't really had high hopes for that plan, but it was a pity that the experimentation in training wasn't going to be used. Oh well.

The moment she saw artillery rounds, massive airburst projectiles that sprayed fragments across hundreds of square feet, Emma was running, crossing the open space as quickly as possible and throwing vortex spheres into pillboxes as she went, trusting in Emily or Alanis or Qing Duo or anyone, really, to kill whatever got tossed out in a more permanent manner. Emma jumped over a small trench, used really for nothing more than getting from one pillbox to another, and-

-slammed face first into a rock, breaking several teeth and her nose. A tentacle was wrapped tightly around her ankle, the sizzle of energy shields beginning to heat up her boots. She tried to kick, tried anything to get out of the grip, but the squid was still in the trench and she had no leverage. It took but a second, and then she was thrown bodily into the bottom of the narrow trench, cracking he head against the floor but bringing her hands up instinctively to catch the plasma cutter headed for her neck, slicing off two fingers in the process.

Emma's vision was blurred, she couldn't really see the multi-tentacled thing she was fighting, but she didn't need to this close. Emma kicked upwards, throwing the squid back, and giving her a brief second to try and respond properly. Time dialed down until it moved very, very slowly, her perception snapping into massive over drive as the options were laid out in front of her. She had been trained for this, this was nothing new, she just needed-

-to watch in horror as Tracy appeared out of nowhere, cutlass in hand and hacking off two of the squid's limbs before sweeping upwards to bisect it once, twice, three times and let the pieces fall to the ground.

"Are you alright?!" shouted Tracy, spinning and dropping to her knees beside Emma, hands fluttering in anxiety. "What can I do? What do you need?"

"Cubes, then get out of here!" Emma shouted telepathically. "What the hell are you doing? I told you to-!"

"Make deliveries, and that's what I'm doing," said Tracy, voice trembling as she dropped a handful of grief cubes onto Emma's soul gem, swallowing. "I've made half a dozen runs already and-."

Tracy suddenly fell, eyes wide with shock as the smell of burning flesh filled the air. Emma was on her feet immediately, leaping out of the trench as laser fire tore into the space where she had been. She threw a vortex sphere, punching into an Airborne Trooper and throwing it back into the pillbox that she thought she had cleared. Emma charged, using the momentum of her first attack and slamming the point of her halberd into the squid, before blasting it at point blank with a ripping whirlwind that tore it to pieces.

Emma spun and threw again, vortex sphere whistling pass Tracy's prone but convulsing form to throw back another trooper. Emma ran forward, pulled her arm back, and threw her halberd, the heavy weapon flipping through the air to hack into the squid's face plate and, probably, kill it. That wasn't her priority at the moment though.

"H-help," croaked Tracy as Emma skidded to her. A series of laser burns cut open Tracy's back and her TacComp, leaving her lungs and GI tract open to the air and spilling out onto the ground. "H-help me, Emma! Please! I-I don't want to- I don't want-!"

"You're going to be okay," said Emma, checking Tracy's gem first. It was rapidly coiling with black. "Listen to me, Tracy, you're going-," Emma grabbed Tracy's head and looked her in the eye as the girl writhed "-You are going to be fine! Do you understand me?!"

Tracy nodded, crying from pain and terror as she felt her body shutting down.

"Okay, okay," said Emma, taking deep breaths to stay calm. Tracy's gem was already below twenty percent, there wasn't any time. "Okay, Tracy, you have to trust me. Do you trust me, Tracy?"

Again, Tracy nodded.

"Okay, then, then, close your eyes," said Emma, gripping Tracy's hand tightly. "Close your eyes for me, okay?"

Tracy bit her lip, then closed her eyes tightly. Emma took a deep, steadying breath, put Tracy's soul gem into her backpack, and drew her sidearm. She set it to incendiary, then clicked the safety off and brought it to bear against Tracy's head.

"Emma?" asked Tracy. "Emma, why did you stop talking? Emma? Emma?!"

Emma pulled the trigger. There was a bright flash as the high velocity round first blew away the head, then began to burn. Emma backed away, then pushed a whirlwind into the body, whipping the fire white hot with her magic while tearing the body into pieces for faster incineration.

"New girl, where the fuck are you?" asked Emily over telepathy. "You're not down, that much I can tell, so what the fuck-?"

"Tracy Geyeller is down," reported Emma on the battlenet calmly, flatly, her TacComp kicking her into command mode to keep her from screaming. "I need a medic to collect her soul gem."

The battlenet dropped to complete silence for almost exactly one second.

"Medical Team Seven is inbound," said one of the teams. "Have you secured her body?"

"Negative, the body had to be destroyed," said Emma, breathing deeply as C Company advanced past her.

"What? Why?"

"She was inexperienced and panicking. Her gem was near zero by the time I pulled the trigger."

"Shit, you pulled the trigger yourself?" asked Emily. "Holy fuck, Ne- Emma. I… Goddess."

"Are you going to be alright?" asked Alanis. "Do you need to pull back and take a breather?"

"No, I'll… I'll be okay."

"Alright. Hold your position and keep her gem going. The squid can wait a bit."

Emma clicked affirmative and made her way into the pillbox adjacent. She took a seat beside the remains of the squid she had splattered earlier, along with a pair of machine gunners busy giving suppressive fire.

This, she reflected as she monitored Tracy's soul gem and made sure her backpack was feeding it enough cubes, was where the hero in the old flicks was supposed to light a cigarette. She didn't have any cigarettes, and she didn't feel like looking up what effect nicotine had. She supposed it would have been nice to have one, regardless.

"ETA two minutes," said MT7's leader.

"Acknowledged," Emma said, pulling her legs in towards her and resting her head on top of them. Distantly, it occurred to her that it was a very, very good thing that her TacComp had automatically turned on maximal command mode, or as maximal as could be got at her level. Some vague, isolated part of her was screaming, wanting desperately for Tracy to come back, for this to have never happened, that maybe just one action could have made all the difference.

Every other part of Emma rejected this. With the hormones, drugs, and implants slamming into her brain at the moment, there was nothing that allowed her to feel as if there was anything wrong about what she had done. It was a judgment call, and from the rate of decay of Tracy's gem, and it was probably the right one.

"Medical Team Seven reporting," said MT7's leader, the medic-bodyguard combination ducking into the pillbox. "The gem?"

Emma brought the gem out, hovering now at about 50% and beginning to drop again, and handed it to the magical girl. She couldn't believe it had been two minutes already, but then again, she wasn't exactly completely lucid.

Gently, the medic placed the gem in a padded case, surrounded with grief cubes, and then closed it. The outside was armored with the same material used for soul gem covers, impervious to just about anything except full on artillery. The gem would be safe inside.

"Alright, we'll get this back to the medical facility in Helsinberg as quickly as possible," said the medic.

"Thank you," said Emma, because it felt like that was the appropriate thing to say. "Chief Jones, status report, please."

"Third Platoon is advancing with the rest of the company," reported Ingrid. "Our supplies are holding well, thanks to Lieutenants Geyeller and Hayer. I understand Lieutenant Geyeller is down?"

"Affirmative. Please restructure your offensive to account for this."

"Understood, will comply."

Emma clicked off the battlenet and switched to telepathy: "Alanis, I'm ready to go."

"Good. We're holding a few dozen meters north-," three green dots appeared on Emma's vision, north of her position and relatively near the water "-and keeping the squid suppressed. Can you still provide flash for us?"

Emma evaluated the situation and had her TacComp run a prediction. "Negative, I will be restricted to a melee capacity for the remainder of the offensive. Current emotional fluctuations are unacceptably high."

"Damn," said Alanis. "Alright, stick close to Emily and give her support then. We'll run a Dungeness."

Emma clicked affirmative and ran at speed for Emily's position. The Dungeness Maneuver was named after a type of Earth crab, the key part being the crab's hard shell and snapping claws. Emma's role was to be the jaws of the crab , tearing into anything weakened by Emily's "claws" while protected by Qing Duo's "shell". Alanis would run around shooting things and giving them cover.

"You ready then, Emma?" asked Emily, hunkering behind a pillbox. Emma nodded and summoned a halberd.

"Right then. Qing Duo?"

A phalanx of mirrors bearing reflections appeared about them. Emily led the attack, stepping forward at an easy jog and pushing the water out of her gourd in a wide arc, crashing it against the shields of the squids she could see until they failed and were strangled, drowned, or otherwise killed. Emma helped by flagging any enemies she spotted. It was a fairly straight forward maneuver, with the mirrors and drones blocking most of the incoming fire and Emma and Emily working in concert to hack and smash their way into the enemy.

The soldiers of C Company advanced behind them, sweeping clear the defenses in their path. Still farther behind came the 45th Regiment and the 9th Militia, pushing up and clearing the defenses in totality. All along the front, the Airborne Troopers were being forcibly pried out of their positions and cast back, the charge of the 48th Division Mechanized Battalion having fragmented their line enough for the heavy infantry to create a salient and begin the messy, but relatively easy, business of exterminating the cephalopod presence. In terms of casualties, about 25% of the defenders had taken any hits, but only a quarter of those casualties were fatal. The organized retreat of the Militia, followed by the timely offense of the 45th Regiment and the decisive action of 48th Regiment, 8th Battalion in particular, allowed for a clear victory, reopening the flow of supplies and allowing for the organized withdrawal of many units along the main front deep in Allatia.

This news was delivered via TacComp, along with the order for all human personnel to withdraw and stand by for further orders. A ragged series of cheers could be heard over the battlenet if Emma had been inclined to listen. Instead, she made her way from the battlefield towards a relatively secluded spot by the river, easily visible of looked for, but out of the way and with a certain amount of quiet.

She sat there for a long time, staring out over the water and the corpses, human and squid, that floated down it. It was good news, she decided as she watched a corpse bob along, the news that the attack had been important. That meant that all the deaths were worth something, at least, to the overall objective of "protect humanity". It had to mean something.

Rene found her sitting at the river bank with her legs drawn up, quiet and unmoving as Samsara's sun rose over the mountains. Late stage mopping up operations could be conducted largely autonomously from the platoon commander, with ground drones doing most of the work.

"Emma!" Rene called out, jumping across the river with magic and landing with a small flare. "Emma, how goes? Did combat go well for you today?"

"Rene," said Emma quietly, looking up before nodding in greeting. "Good morning."

"Are… you alright?" asked Rene, sitting down beside Emma.

"I…" Emma blinked as she realized that she hadn't turned off the emotion suppression. She paused, mechanically drawing a set of grief cubes out of her backpack and holding them in the palm of her hand, together with her soul gem.

"Are you still suppressed?" asked Rene. "Emma, that is not healthy."

"I know," said Emma calmly, turning the suppression off with a mental flick. "I j-just turned it-."

Emma stopped again, licking her lips and blinking rapidly as tears pooled in her eyes.

"What is wrong?" asked Rene, moving closer in concern. "Emma, are you sure you are alright?"

"Rene, I… I had to-."

"Wha- hey, hey, it's okay," said Rene, surprised by Emma suddenly grabbing onto her and sobbing uncontrollably into her shoulder. Quickly, Rene scooted closer and wrapped her arms around Emma's shoulders. "Shshsh, it's okay, it's okay."

Emma was crying too hard to respond.


End file.
